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Mallory was alone in the cave the next day making a sandwich when Red Tornado came in by zeta tube.
"Inferno, where is the team?" he asked.
"Busy. Jobs, home lives, dates, all the normal stuff," she replied.
"There is a disturbance on the west coast, Green Lantern has put in a request for backup," he said.
"So? That's a League responsibility, isn't it?" she asked, putting the top piece of bread on and going to the refrigerator to put away the ingredients.
"Ordinarily, yes, however the League is stretched thin right now with Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Captain Atom on the diplomatic mission with the United Nations, and I received word that there was a prison break in Central City. Flash has requested as many Leaguers as he can get. I am on my way there now."
"So you're just gonna leave Hal hanging?" Mallory asked, looking at Tornado over her lunch.
"I was hoping that there would be more of the team here, but since there is not, I must ask you to assist Green Lantern. If more help is needed, it will be there as soon as the larger threat has been neutralized."
Mallory nodded and started walking to her room. "Ok, I'll be there in three minutes. Send the coordinates to my suit." She didn't wait for the android to respond, just ran the rest of the way to her room and donned her suit. She burned her hair quickly and zetaed to Coast city. The hologram appeared in her mask, giving her a map to Green Lantern's coordinates.
"GL, Inferno here. I'm fifty seconds from your position," Mallory said into her comm.
"Inferno? Where's the League?" Hal asked, his voice a little strained.
"Busy on another assignment. Of course, if you don't want my help," she said teasingly. She was close enough to see him now, and she grinned and waved when he looked up.
"Get down here and give me a hand," he ordered, but he returned the grin.
Mallory dropped beside him and surveyed the terrain. The street was cracked, there were some cars on their sides, a fire hydrant was broken, shooting water a few feet into the air, but she didn't see an opponent. Before she could say anything, one of the cars was torn apart with a horrible shrieking sound, and the pieces turned into shards before launching themselves at the heroes. Mallory ducked and Hal put up a shield, protecting them.
"Who are we fighting?" Mallory asked.
"Hammond," he replied shortly, staring ahead as he concentrated on the shield. Mallory winced. Hector Hammond, telepath, telekinetic, and genius. She'd never fought him before, but she'd seen the damage when he fought the others, especially Hal.
"Ok, so what's the plan?" she asked, looking up and the older hero from where she crouched.
"Get an inhibitor collar on him," he said.
"You have one?" Mallory asked.
"No, I haven't gotten that far yet."
Hammond stepped out from behind a wall, and Hal nodded to him. "There he is. When I drop the shield, move. Maybe with two of us, it'll keep his attention split."
Mallory nodded, and when the shield went down, she flew towards the villain, shooting fire at him. He pushed the water from the hydrant at her, dowsing some of her flames. She just burned hotter and kept going. When she was just a hundred feet from him, he moved a car between them, and Mallory saw the flames going to the gas tank too late. Before she could reverse direction, the car exploded and she went flying up in the air, only to feel the weight of gravity pulling her back down. She hit the ground hard, her head cloudy as she looked around.
Hal hadn't had much luck, either. He'd tried to hit the guy with a big baseball bat, but the man moved a car full of people in front of the bat, which forced Hal to go chase down the car so he could land it safely. Mallory tried to push herself up, but she felt like she wasn't in control of her actions. Then, Hammond was on top of her, and she realized why.
"Well, Inferno, I don't believe we've had the pleasure before," he said.
Mallory glared at him, unable to speak. She lit her palms and shot the fire straight up, coming close to burning him. Hammond jumped back, then glared down at her.
"Well, you are as resourceful with that fire as they say. Let's see what'll happen when you can't use it anymore," he said. He let her up, and Mallory got to her feet quickly, confused, but she recovered quickly and aimed her hands, ready to shoot.
"Stand down," she yelled. Hammond smiled and put a hand to his head, so Mallory shot fire. Or, she tried to. Nothing happened. The energy went to her hands, but it stopped just short of becoming a flame. She tried again, but to no avail. She stared at her hands, then at Hammond. He laughed, and she narrowed her eyes and ran towards him, throwing punches and kicks, aiming for his huge, disfigured head. He just flew up and out of her reach, laughing.
"Well, I suppose you're not entirely useless without your fire." He tore apart another car and made chains out of the metal, sending them at Mallory. The metal pressed into her skin as it tightened around her, pinning her arms to her sides and binding her legs together. She felt herself getting off balance, so she hopped backwards a little until she was leaning against a wall.
Hal came flying back, and when he saw her, he narrowed his eyes and went to work. He flew over the little man's head and made a big fly swatter. Mallory rolled her eyes, straining against the chains. She could tell that Hal was worn out, and with no backup coming any time soon, she needed to get back out there. The metal cut into her arms until they started to bleed, and she wished for the first time that she'd put sleeves on her suit when she'd designed it. She looked down and winced at the drops of blood trickling down her arms.
The next time she looked up, Hal was hurtling towards her. She dove out of the way and he slammed into the brick wall she'd been leaning on. "Gah!" he yelled, holding his shoulder. Mallory looked at it from her spot on the ground and knew immediately that it was dislocated, at the very least.
She clenched her jaw, furious. With all the energy now pent up inside, she felt the old surge of anger, the pain of being burned alive. She needed it out, or it would consume her. Hammond was coming closer, taunting the fallen heroes. She shut her eyes, digging deep. When she opened them, they were blazing red. She flexed the muscles in her arms, and the chains burst into pieces. She ripped the chains off her legs and ran towards Hammond. His eyes actually showed fear, and he shoved cars, broken cement, anything that wasn't attached to the street in between them. Mallory just batted them away, barely seeing them, until she was on top of Hammond, one fist raised, ready to deal the blow. When her fist came down, though, it connected with something decidedly harder than flesh. She looked down and saw a green cracked shield.
She looked over at Hal, surprised, and saw him staring at her in shock, one arm hanging limply at his side, the other one aimed at her as it kept the shield intact. She nodded a thanks to him and stood up, and Hal hesitantly took down the shield. Hammond was still staring at Mallory, his eyes wide, not knowing what to expect.
"So, do you have that inhibitor collar, or what?" she asked lightly, choosing to ignore what had just happened. At least for the moment.
"Um, no, not exactly," Hal said.
Mallory nodded. "That's fine. We'll improvise," she said, and she brought her hand down on a pressure point on Hammond's neck, careful not to do it too hard. The little man dropped to the ground, unconscious, and Hal put him in a bubble, then turned to continue staring at Mallory.
Their comms beeped, and Tornado said, "The central City threat has been neutralized. Reinforcements will be there in five minutes."
Mallory put a hand to her ear. "No need, Tornado. We got our guy, and we're on our way to the cave now for medical attention," she said, looking at Hal to make sure that that was the plan. He snapped out of his stupor and nodded.
"Let me just get him back in his cage," he said.
Mallory lit a fire in her palm, and as she'd suspected, when Hammond was knocked out, his psychic suggestion wore off. "I'll come with you," she said, eying his shoulder worriedly.
They flew to the prison that Hammond had broken out of, and on their way to the zeta tube, Hal finally addressed the elephant in the room. "So, um, super strength?" he said.
Mallory shrugged. "Guess so," she said.
"So, you know we can't keep this from the League, right?" he asked.
Mallory winced, knowing that by the League, he meant Batman. "Yeah, I know. Let's worry about one thing at a time, though, ok? You need to get that shoulder fixed up."
Hal nodded, and they landed by the zeta tube, appearing in the living room of the cave a moment later. Tornado, Batman, and Superman were waiting for them.
"Torch, what happened?" Clark asked when he saw them.
"A lot, but can I take one breath before I explain?" she asked.
"Get them to medbay. They can explain while they're treated," Batman said.
The group walked through the room, and Mallory glanced longingly at her sandwich still sitting on the counter, only one bite taken out of it. She sighed and forced herself to walk past it, her stomach grumbling in protest. When they got to medbay, Hal sat on one of the beds and his suit melted off, revealing his civies. Superman helped him get his injured arm out of his jacket while Batman got a shot to numb the area. While Batman ran an x-ray, Superman walked over to the other side of the room and looked at Mallory.
"Sit down, I'll take care of those cuts," he said.
Mallory crossed her arms. "I'm fine, I'll do that later," she said.
Clark narrowed his eyes and pointed to a bed. "Sit," he ordered.
She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Her mentor cleaned off the dried blood and looked at the cuts themselves. "They're not too deep," he said, grabbing a bottle of iodine from the shelf. He disinfected them and put some large bandages over them. "There, that wasn't so-" he was cut off by Hal yelling in pain as Batman popped his shoulder back into socket. Mallory fought a grin and looked up at her mentor.
"Nope. That wasn't bad at all," she said. Clark chuckled, and the five heroes, including Red Tornado, who had followed them to medbay, gathered around Hal's bed.
"So, what happened?" Clark asked.
"I was fighting Hector Hammond, and things got a little out of control, so I called in for some backup. Apparently Barry ranks a little higher on your list, because all the backup went to him. When Inferno got there, I was already pretty worn out, but Hammond took away her powers somehow and tied her up." He looked at Mallory, seeing if she wanted to take over. She sighed and said, "when GL went down, I figured if I didn't come up with something quick we'd both be dead, so I tried to tap into my fire in a different way, and I ended up, um, getting a little stronger than normal," she said, looking at Batman and Superman for their reactions.
"She has super strength, for sure. She cracked my shield, and you know that's not that easy to do," Hal put in.
Batman stared at her for a long moment, then he said, "I want you to learn how to develop and control this."
"Batman's right, Torch. You know how dangerous it is to have a power that you don't know how to control."
Mallory nodded. "Yeah, I know. So, who's my teacher for this gonna be? Cause as much as Volcana loves me, I don't think she'll be willing to get beat up just to teach me how to not beat someone up."
Clark chuckled and tilted his head. "I suppose I could," he said slowly.
"Hey, I can do it," Hal said, standing up. The other heroes looked at him, and he tilted his head. "What? I know a little something about teaching, and my shields are strong enough to protect me from Superman."
"Yeah, for like two seconds," Mallory said.
Hal laughed. "Hey, two seconds is a long time in battle," he said.
"Yeah, it's really not," Mallory replied.
"Whatever. Besides, I've got more time on my hands."
Batman thought about it for a moment. "Fine. Green Lantern will start training you tomorrow. You can use the training room here at the cave, just make sure that no one gets in the way," he said. Mallory and Hal nodded, and Mallory started towards the door.
"Hey, Torch, where are you going in such a hurry?" Superman asked.
"I was in the middle of something before I got called out, I just need to finish it," she replied. He nodded, and she left and went to the living room, going straight to the counter to eat her sandwich.