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 8: Battle Ground

Over the next few weeks Nicola began to come to terms with the latest major upheaval in her life. It was quite a change of mindset; after spending 14 years thinking her birth parents had been good-for-nothings who hadn't wanted her, she'd suddenly found out that they had been superheroes and she'd been denied any knowledge of them apparently for her own protection. Of course, Warren had a few things to say about that, none of it complimentary and not all of it in English.

Her adoptive parents hadn't been too sure about her new-found cousin at first, but they couldn't help being grateful to him for helping her to control her powers. She didn't tell them about Dorian and the Battle family because that would only make them worried, and there wasn't much they could do about the situation. Besides, she had the panic button and she was under 24-hour surveillance; there wasn't much more anyone could do.

The question of the surveillance confused her at first considering she couldn't see anyone watching her, until Will told her that was the general idea.

It seemed that the superheroes assigned to this type of work were those termed 'hero support', people with so-called 'lesser powers'. A group of them, dissatisfied with being treated as second-class heroes, had formed a specialist agency called Under The Radar which was now highly in demand for their skills in undercover work. Will told her that almost every newspaper seller, street sweeper, ice cream vendor, dog-walker and pram-pusher in her neighborhood, even her school bus driver, was now a secret agent.

Nicola also got to meet the rest of Warren's superhero team, which just confirmed her first impression that they were a pretty mixed bunch. She found it quite interesting that none of them looked that different to their alter egos, and yet the average citizen was blithely unaware of their dual identities. It seemed that people really only see what they expect to – and what they want to – especially when it comes to their superheroes.

For Nicola, however, it was fun knowing something no one else did, and to think That's my cousin! when Maxville's heroes were on TV. It somewhat helped to compensate for the fact that there were some really bad guys who wanted her.

Well, somewhat.


The Guardians had taken over the Strongholds' Secret Sanctum again, but only for the evening. The pool table had been removed and Steve's trophy collection was back in storage to make space for Will and Kate's engagement dinner. Not that there were many guests – just the team themselves, his parents and her mom.

Steve had just stood up to make a speech when he was interrupted by two different panic alarms. One was from Under The Radar to report that they'd just lost contact with their two agents watching Nicola's house … the other was from Nicola herself.

Without even needing to ask for permission, Magenta pulled her laptop out of her bag and hooked it up with Jetstream's set-up to track Nicola from the homing beacon in Layla's pendant.

They geared up quickly, but not before Warren put his foot down about who would be part of the rescue operation and who wasn't. "This is going to be a firefight and it's likely to get ugly, so absolutely no one who isn't fireproof is going in," he ordered.

"But Warren – " Layla started to protest but he cut her off sharply.

"Don't argue with me, Layla. This is not open for discussion."

She just gave him an angry look and went to sit with Kate's mom who quietly tried to convince her that he was right.

Meanwhile Magenta was tracking Nicola's progress. "That's odd. They've just gone straight past one of their hideouts."

"Maybe they know we're aware of that one so they're avoiding it," suggested Ethan, going through his database of villains on his own laptop. Like Magenta, he didn't go anywhere without it.

"Yeah, we did kinda bust that one a few months ago," put in Zach.

Kate joined them as she pulled on her gloves, "Do you think they know we can track her?"

"Doubt it," shrugged Maj. "If they were worried about that they would have searched her for transmitters of any kind, which they evidently didn't."

"Good thing they don't have any technopaths among them," said Ethan.

Warren walked up to them. "Yeah, there has to be some advantage to all that in-breeding."

"They'd need to take her someplace secure," Josie pointed out. She and Steve were going to be joining the Guardians; Steve was, of course, invulnerable and her super-suit would afford her enough protection for her to be able to fly in quickly and get the hostage out to safety.

Magenta looked closely at her screen. "You know, they might even be taking her to their headquarters."

"Then we could be able to nail the lot of them," said Will as he returned from fetching the van.

"Actually, I was hoping to rescue her before they even get her to their destination," answered Warren.

"And then what?" Ethan reasoned. "We rescue her, most of them get away, we don't know where their hideout is so they're still going strong and they can come snatch her again next time, only then they'll be more careful. Warren, we might never get another chance like this again."

Warren agreed reluctantly. "Fine," he sighed. "But we're cutting it very close."

Will said, "Look, this is going to be a firefight like you said, so wouldn't you prefer it to be tucked away in their HQ rather than on the streets of the City surrounded by civilians?"

"I don't really care, Will," replied the pyro darkly, causing his friend to glance at him in concern. "I will burn this City to the ground before I allow them to create their own fire elemental." With that he strode off.

Will looked after him, hoping he was only exaggerating for effect. Still, he could understand why his friend was so adamant about the issue, given how potentially dangerous he knew himself to be. That level of fire power in the hands of the Battle family … well, he'd prefer not to think about what they would do.


By the time Nicola and her captors had reached their destination, the Guardians were halfway there in the van.

"I'm pretty sure that's their main base," said Magenta, looking at Nicola's location beacon on her screen. "It's right in the area the National Council of Superheroes have estimated them to be, although it seemed like a really unlikely location for a den of super villains." No one even needed to ask where she got that kind of classified information any more.

"In that case, we could be dealing with about two dozen family members plus the godfather himself." Ethan put up some photos on his screen for the others to see. "That's Hellfire, believed to be the current head of the family."

"Awfully young to be the patriarch, don't you think?" commented Kate, looking at the picture of a man in his early forties. "Or is that an old photo?"

"No, it's quite recent. And yeah, he's definitely the youngest godfather in the family's history," Magenta agreed. "The NCS have no idea why either."

Ethan continued his briefing with some more photos. "Apart from him, there is the rest of the family leadership, anywhere between 18 and 30 according to our sources, including about six in his inner circle."

"But would they all be there in one place?" asked Will hopefully.

"It's a big deal for the family, this whole fire elemental breeding business," said Warren quietly.

At that point the van arrived at their destination, part of the fashionable business district, which was deserted at this time of night. Zach parked on the roof of an office block with huge glass windows that seemed a lot darker than those of the buildings around it.

'What is this place anyway?' he asked on the comm.

"A law firm called Blaise & Sons," replied Magenta, "A family business, apparently."

"Figures," commented Warren.

"Be careful, guys," Maj added. "I can't find any sort of security camera system in the building to tap into, so you're gonna be going in blind."

Will flew Warren down to the front entrance while his mother took his father to the back door.

Warren tapped lightly on the nearest window. "Armored glass," he commented to Will. In a building full of pyros, that made a lot of sense.

Kate entered the building from the rooftop at the same time as Will and the Commander crashed through their respective doors.

The mafia family seemed to have been overconfident in the secrecy of their headquarters, because there was only a skeleton crew of thugs guarding the place. They were quickly taken care of and Will called for the NCS clean-up crew to take them into custody.

The heroes met up outside what seemed to be a conference room that covered a third of the bottom floor and the floor above it. Warren placed a hand on one of the locked doors and concentrated with his pyro-psionic sense.

He turned to the others and nodded. There was definitely at least one pyrokinetic in there who was powered up.

Will and his father each took hold of one of the heavy steel doors.


Nicola was, quite understandably, terrified. Not only for herself, but also for her parents who were had been kidnapped as well. If things got ugly, she was at least fireproof – they weren't.

The room they were in looked like a large double-storey conference chamber. The doors and all of the furniture appeared to be metal, and there were alcoves with lit torches along the walls in addition to the normal electric lighting. About twenty men dressed in black were assembled there as her kidnappers presented her to the villain who was evidently running the entire show. From what she'd overheard on the way here, his name was Hellfire.

He was seemed quite young to be the so-called godfather of a mafia family, about 40-ish from the looks of things. Like the others, he wore fitting black leather armor that looked a bit like a long trenchcoat. His dark hair had a number of red streaks in it, more like Warren on that score than the other Battle family members.

"Let my parents go!" Nicola demanded, trying very hard not to show how afraid she was. "It's me you want."

"Not quite," replied the super villain. "Actually, it's your cooperation we want – we don't need it, but it's easier that way – and they're here to encourage that."

"What's going on, Nicola?" asked her mother anxiously. "Has this got something to do with your cousin Warren?"

Hellfire answered for her with a nasty half-smile, "It has everything to do with him."

"He'll rescue us," she stated as firmly as she could, as much to reassure herself and her parents as to defy the villains.

"I'm sure he would if he knew where you are," sneered the godfather. He ignited one hand and held it tauntingly near her mother who cringed and tried to pull away from the fire but her captor held her tightly. "You'll cooperate, won't you, Helen?" he asked, using her birth name condescendingly.

Suddenly every flame in the room was extinguished and Nicola gave him her best imitation of Warren's smirk. There was only one person she knew who could do that.

Sure enough, a moment later the heavy doors and their hinges were ripped off the walls and her cousin stalked through the entrance, flanked by Eagle and the Commander.


Warren was right. It did turn into a firefight, a pretty ugly one and very quickly. In seconds there was fire flying everywhere, except in a circle around Nicola and her parents. Any fireball that went shooting in their direction came to an abrupt halt in mid-air. Even Hellfire and the pyros restraining the three hostages were unable to do anything because their fire disappeared as soon as they powered up. Nicola had to admit she was completely in awe of her cousin, who was also making his own contributions to the firefight at the same time as protecting her and her parents. How many powers did he have anyway?

Will flew in and made a grab for Nicola but a well-aimed fireball from one of the villains caused him to veer off-course. He shook his head in exasperation at his involuntary reaction; Warren had often told him off for flinching automatically in situations like this even though fire couldn't hurt him and he knew it. Correcting his course slightly, he snatched her parents instead. They were the most vulnerable ones in the battle, and it was his instinct to protect innocent bystanders. Besides, it was a waste of Warren's mental energy and concentration to have to continue protecting them using his pyro-psionics. Outside the conference room Will handed the hostages over to his mother who had flown in to extract them, and then he headed back into the fray.

By now the fire and smoke were so thick it was difficult to see anything. Will whipped around the room with a handful of neutralizing bracelets, and in a couple of minutes there were a dozen frustrated pyros, along with the other dozen whom the Commander had already rendered unconscious.

Warren saw what Will was doing, and followed his progress with a wall of fire that effectively corralled the villains and prevented them from escaping by some sort of secret passageway. Now that their powers were neutralized, they'd also lost their invulnerability to fire, as a few discovered quite painfully.

As the smoke cleared, however, two things became blatantly obvious – Hellfire was gone, and he had Nicola with him.

What was worse, he'd obviously worked out how they had traced her. Layla's pendant was lying on the floor, destroyed.


"Where the hell are they?" demanded Warren for the fourth time. They'd been searching the conference room for hidden escape routes for the past five minutes, during which time the godfather could've gotten anywhere.

'I don't know,' replied Maj, getting a bit testy with being asked the same question yet again, 'I told you before that they don't have a security camera system here for me to tap into.'

Zach added, 'And it's not like we've got a tricorder or something to detect life signs, you know.'

'I've got some constructs searching, but none of them have come back yet,' reported Kate from elsewhere in the building.

Warren wished that the NCS clean-up crew hadn't taken the captured villains away into custody before he'd had a chance to question them about secret passageways, not that anyone would have let him do any … forceful interrogating, he suspected.

Meanwhile Layla had been doing some rather more constructive thinking. She took control of the trees lining the road and sent their roots deep into the ground towards the building. When they kept on encountering concrete and steel, she realized where the hidden escape might be.

'Have you checked the floor?' she asked. 'The building goes a lot deeper underground than just your average foundations.'

Will wasted no time in punching a hole through the floor, and he and Warren jumped down into the underground chamber that was revealed. It seemed to cover the same area as the conference room, but there were passages leading away from it in five different directions. The two heroes shared a glance in the dim light and split up to search. Will told Kate what they'd found and she headed down to help look.

Warren created a few flame constructs and sent them off to search, and then made another which he kept under his control and flew a bit ahead of him to light the way. It was just around the corner from him when it exploded into a shower of sparks, and it felt like his head did too. There was only one thing that could cause this kind of pain, he realized as he fell to his hands and knees in agony. His construct had collided with someone else's and it certainly wasn't Kate.

'What just happened?' asked Will.

"Hellfire's … a 'constructor," Warren managed to reply between gasps.

'I thought the whole family are all 'kinetics,' said Magenta.

'I guess it's possible one of them's a pyro-constructor as well as pyrokinetic,' ventured Ethan uncertainly.

'That could explain how he got to be the godfather so young,' observed Kate.

Will asked Warren, 'Are you okay, man?'

"Don't worry about me," he snapped in reply. "Concentrate on the mission!"

Will flew over to the area Warren had been searching, hoping that Hellfire might still be in the vicinity of his construct. It didn't take him long to locate the godfather and his hostage. They were in a well-lit area, almost at a getaway vehicle parked next to a tunnel that probably led to the surface.

Cutting the pyro off from his means of escape, Will landed. "You won't get out that way, Hellfire."

"Are you sure about that?" the super villain asked smoothly, shifting his grip on Nicola so that he held her neck in one hand while the other was still free to fight with Will. "Get out of my way or I will break her neck. You know her invulnerability isn't nearly as good as yours."

"Isn't it?" challenged Will, but the question was actually aimed at Ethan.

'Sorry, Eagle, he's probably right,' Ethan replied. 'He could be bluffing, but do you really want to take the chance?'

Will asked the villain, "Won't that defeat the object of kidnapping her in the first place?"

"She doesn't need to be alive for us to harvest her DNA," was Hellfire's chilling response. "So I repeat, get out of my way or she's dead."

Will hated moments like this. He knew that unless he acted quickly Hellfire would kill her, and if he complied the villain would get away with what he needed, and there was no guarantee she would be safe anyway. Will couldn't help remembering what Warren had said about burning the entire City if necessary. He certainly knew the stakes, but that didn't make the choice any easier.

He breathed a quick sigh of relief when he was saved from the decision by the arrival of a pair of fiery dragons, closely followed by Kate. Surely the super villain wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of a dogfight.


Warren forced himself to sit up despite the blinding pain. He could do this, he had to. After all, Kate had pulled herself together after one of her constructs had connected with Arctic Flame's fire, surely he could as well. Maybe it was worse because it was two constructs colliding, or maybe because it was on top of the other pyro-psionics he'd been doing?

Either way, it wasn't an excuse. There was no way he was going to let Hellfire escape, and definitely not with Nicola. After a couple of attempts with uncoordinated fingers, he managed to retrieve a neutralizer and a syringe of Ethan's headache cocktail from his pocket.

He quickly flicked the neutralizer around his wrist, knowing he would probably have Stronghold on his case later for making himself vulnerable in hostile territory. But he didn't have much of a choice; they'd discovered that there was a downside to the invulnerability factor his powers provided – it was impossible to give himself an injection. Stronghold probably had the same problem, but he never needed anyone sticking needles in him.

With the thumb of his other hand hovering over the biometric scanner on the neutralizing bracelet just in case he needed to remove it in a hurry, Warren injected himself in the thigh. At that point he was very grateful that the syringe was an auto-injector, similar to the ones used by the US Military, because he wouldn't have been able to safely operate a regular needle just then. There certainly was an advantage to knowing someone in the pharmaceutical industry, and of course Ethan wasn't complaining considering it gave him an excuse to keep phoning the Alchemistress. One of these days he might actually get up the guts to ask her out, but that was another story entirely.

All of this was accomplished in about two seconds of vulnerability. Warren took off the neutralizer and sat with his head in his hands waiting for the drug to take effect. As the pain began to recede a bit he opened his eyes and tried to focus on what was going on elsewhere in the building. The video feed from Will's sunglasses camera showed that Hellfire was threatening to snap Nicola's neck if Will didn't get out of his way.

What was he hesitating for? Warren was about to tell him to go and nail the villain even if it meant sacrificing Nicola, although he knew he would probably never forgive himself for that, when both he and Stronghold were saved from the dilemma by Kate arriving on the scene to distract the godfather.

By then Warren's headache, while still extremely painful, had cleared enough for him to be able to use his other powers. With his 'psionic fire-awareness he could tell that Kate and Hellfire were both creating kamikaze constructs at a rapid rate, but it didn't seem to be working that well as a distraction, and Will was still hesitating.

Warren concentrated on the godfather's constructs themselves. For obvious reasons Hellfire was releasing his fire animations almost as soon as they were created, but there had to be a brief moment of mental contact when he was giving it its instructions. It was an extremely short window of opportunity, and Warren missed on the first two attempts.

On his third attempt, time seemed to slow down as he 'psionically grabbed control of Hellfire's construct just as it took coherent form. This was exactly like what he did to Kate in his dream, but he forced that thought (and the accompanying revulsion) out of his head.


It came as quite a surprise when the godfather suddenly reacted with extreme pain and the newly-formed construct hovering near his hand froze. He didn't quite let go of Nicola, however this was just the diversion Will needed. Reminding himself to thank Warren later, he took his chance.
The next few seconds seemed like hours to Warren. He had Hellfire's construct in a firm but delicate grip, and it would be so easy to simply crush the animation, completely imploding the super villain's mind and leaving him senseless.

Tempting … but not actually an option.

Moral issues aside, it was getting harder and harder to retain the fragile balance of his 'psionic grip. The headache was beginning to overpower him again and he was getting desperately afraid that he would falter and the godfather would escape.

What was taking Stronghold so damn long?


Despite how long it felt to Warren, it really only took a few seconds for Will to apprehend the villain. When he was safely neutralized, Will took both him and Nicola and flew quickly up out of the hidden basement. He handed the godfather over to the clean-up crew and reassured Nicola that her parents were safe.

Warren, however, he wasn't so sure about …


At first he thought that the headache drug had finally kicked in. As soon as Stronghold neutralized Hellfire, the villain released the construct and Warren extinguished it. And the pain just vanished.

But then he realized his thinking wasn't any clearer and he was feeling cold… colder than the last time he messed with Weatherman… colder than he'd ever felt in his life…

'Warren, are you okay?'

He wasn't sure who'd asked. It could have been Layla … or maybe it was Will … damn, he definitely wasn't thinking straight…

He couldn't answer, he could barely even think … he was just so … cold …


By the time they got him to level 4a of Maxville Hospital ten minutes later, his temperature was below 130 and still decreasing, and Ethan was very worried.

Five equally concerned friends were gathered at the observation window overlooking the isolation room, watching their doctor and the nurses scurrying around their fallen team member. His bed was surrounded by heaters and hot water bottles covered his body. A warm IV was running into his arm and he was breathing heated air through the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.

Ethan came out to join the others. "We're doing everything we can," he reported. "His temperature isn't dropping as fast as it was, but it's still going down."

"I don't understand why this is happening," said Layla, distressed, "All he did was overdo the 'psionics a bit."

"And he also got nailed by the godfather's construct," added Maj.

"Actually, Layla, he overdid the pyro-psionics a lot," Ethan corrected her and looked at Magenta. "The collision with the construct definitely wasn't good for him, but the real problem was when he took 'psionic control of Hellfire's construct."

"But I thought you said a couple of weeks ago that the psychic backlash doesn't affect the 'psionic, only the 'constructor?" Kate was confused.

"In terms of their types of fire colliding, yes. This was an issue of fighting for control of the same fire. What's more, Warren could have easily destroyed Hellfire's construct, and his mind along with it – "

"Like he did to Kate in his dream," murmured Layla.

"But I believe it took a lot more mental effort to not hurt Hellfire." They looked at Ethan in surprise, so he tried to explain, "Well, think about trying to hold something delicate like a flower petal in a firm grip. It's really difficult to hold it tightly enough not to drop it without crushing it, right? Same thing here. And that act of mercy may just have cost Warren everything."

Zach asked, "Like, what do you mean, 'everything'?"

"Ethan, are you saying that he could – ?" Will couldn't bear to say the word.

"If his temperature keeps dropping, he will. It's part of being a pyro – his body has to be between 140 and 180 in order to function." Ethan sighed, feeling utterly helpless. "And there's nothing else I can do."

Layla pressed her forehead against the glass of the observation window, tears rolling down her cheeks as she gazed into the isolation room. All she could think was that their last words had been spoken in anger.