Into the Fire

Alexander made his way down the stairs, flanked by men in fire resistant vests and sunglasses. His hands were jammed into his pockets, fingering a silver coin that had once belonged to an old friend. Four years ago, Devon Malcrux had descended these stairs to find out what Alexander was capable of. It did his heart good to know that today he was going to bring it all full circle.

Heavy steel doors slammed shut behind the trio as they entered an empty warehouse. Or at least it appeared to be. It was a massive concrete box lit by floodlights, as far as Alexander was concerned. In the center of the room, another boy stood, flanked by guards similar to his. He smiled reassuringly and nodded a greeting.

"State your name, designation, and age, please." One of the guards barked.
"Alexander Judd. Leo. Eighteen."
"You're going to be testing Aries to help us get an idea of what he can do. You understand that this is potentially dangerous and that you are likely to be injured?"
"I understand."
"You may begin at your leisure."

With that, the guards departed. Alexander rolled his shoulders and smirked.

"I promise it's not as bad as it seems. I'll show off a little, your instincts will kick in, you'll show off a little - basic stuff. They just don't want any nasty surprises. Plus, this'll tire us both out for a while. We're less likely to burn down the school that way."

Robin glanced first at the guard on his left, then the one on his right.

"Actually Alex, that sounds like an uncommonly terrible idea." He said "And I have recently burned down a landmark, so my standards for terrible ideas are pretty freaking high right now."

The guard on his right began to speak, something about standard operating procedures. Robin was paying very little attention to him. Instead he was reflecting on the fact that the only person he had grown to moderately like in this screwed up situation was going to.... well he wasn't really sure, he was still a little foggy on the specifics of what being a 'sign' entailed. Regardless, he was dubious about the entire thing.

What he did know was that it was looking an increasing amount like the guards on either side of him were backing right the hell up, which, being an intercity kid, he took to mean that shit was going downhill like an avalanche composed entirely of pain and poor life choices.

"Hey, at least you didn't turn into a giant cosmic lion and maul seven people." Alexander chuckled. He'd pretty much put that incident behind him. Besides - they deserved it. "A lot of what you can do right now is passive. Some stuff you'll learn to control. Like this -"

Alexander turned to his right and drew in a deep breath. Heat welled up in his chest and bubbled into his throat, pushing past his lips and into the air, where it rippled forth in an invisible wave. The sound was something like a car being set on fire. It was always a bit...well, terrifying. For about twenty feet, the ground was scorched completely black. He turned back to Robin.

"For the record, I directed that one into my breath. I can also just sort of...explode, with it. Or shoot it out of my hands. Or whatever. Also! Fun fact; I could do that to you, and you wouldn't feel a god damn thing! Wanna see?"

"No, nope, fuck that, no, Alex why does this seem like a good idea holy shit, you just burned a floor by shouting at it you dragon-born-ass crazy shithead!"

Robin was inching towards one of the guards. He figured that collateral damage would be frowned upon. As he got within a few feet the guard neatly sprinted across the room.

"Oh that's encouraging." Robin muttered.

He looked at Alex. "Ok, so what is the goal here hm? Roast friend is not my favorite dish. Come on, I mean...that's just..."

Robin had run out of stalling material.

Alexander laughed, loudly and ridiculously. The kid was clever - it was true that he wasn't supposed to set the guards on fire.

"Dragonborn-ass-crazy-shithead? I like it. A bit cumbersome, but I like it!" He drew in another deep breath, watched the guards take instinctive steps back, and: "YOL TOOR SHUL MOTHERFUCKER."

Again, the heat rushed forth, this time carried in peculiar waves formed by his words. It burned the inside of his lip slightly, but that would heal in ten minutes or so. He did love messing around with breathing heat. For example, he found out that the words "Fuck off" travel in a wide cone.

Robin closed his eyes, bracing himself for the burning agony. A massive whoosh sound rolled over him. A few moments passed. He found himself wanting to smile at the stupid video-game reference. It then occurred to him that he was not dead, he put down his arms and blinked at Alexander. He glanced at the guards, who had flattened themselves against the walls.

"Um..." robin said. He realized that the ground to either side of him was charred in the same way as before. The space around him however was completely clear. "Wow...you have better control of that than I thought you did... Way to fuck with the new guy...actually, what the hell anyway! Damn man, don't shoot....uh....don't roar at people!"

What Robin was incapable of knowing was that rather than the roar passing around him, as it had reached him, a massive crest of white hot flame had blossomed outwards, crashing against the opposing heatwave, and redirecting it.

Alexander had a brief internal debate about whether or not to tell Robin how fucking awesome he just looked.

"No, listen: I didn't avoid you." He sighed, having decided that though it would be nice to be praised (falsely) for insane mastery of his powers, that was not what he was here to do. "You defended yourself. You conjured a flame shield. Or something like it, anyway."

Alexander chewed the inside of his cheek absently. He was racking his brain for a way to get Robin to really act. He was a cardinal sign, a creator - someone who made things happen. It should have come naturally to him to strike back. Not just defend - strike back.

"Hit me." He said decisively.

Robin considered this for about half a second. He really didn't think that a flame shield was likely... on the other hand, dragon-born bullshit. He was pretty sure he was going nuts. He needed to decompress he needed to-

"Hit me."

Well that would do. Robin blinked, cracked his neck, and dashed forwards. Halfway to Alexander, Robin considered that in the time it had taken him to cross the room, the guards had only barely started following the path of his movement. He wondered idly if they were teasing him, then his fist slammed into Alex's side.

Robin had figured that going for a sucker-punch to the head was bad form, even for as ridiculous a situation as this. Still, a body-blow seemed like a good alternative, quick, satisfying, and unlikely to do any permanent damage. Robin was quite satisfied with his calculation right up until the moment Alex went flying like a hackysack and slammed into the opposite wall...in slow motion.

"Oh shit." Robin said, unsure how else to respond. suddenly he was hit with a wave of dizziness. His legs felt like he had run five miles. He lowered himself to the floor, wincing.

"Jesus shit, are you ok Alex?" He called from across the room.

"I....have no idea what the hell was up with that but...sorry."

As time slowed for Robin, so it did for Alexander. His eyes lit up as he followed Robin's fist all the way through the punch. The impact was phenomenal.

As it is with most Fire signs, Alexander felt the pain first as searing heat, then as actual pain. A small wave of heat energy loosed from his body as he struck the wall, leaving the impact point blackened. This was not the first time Alexander had been launched across this room. This was likely not going to be the last.

"I'm good." He croaked, pushing himself up. "Tell you what, though. I'm gonna patch myself up real quick - no need to stop the fire fight, though. I can put myself on auto-pilot, so to speak."

Grinning, Alexander planted his feet firmly and took a long, slow breath.

"By the way - Have you ever seen a giant cosmic lion breath fire?"

Robin frowned the frown of a person sure that their destiny was to be killed by a giant snarky cosmic fire breathing cat. That was to say, he frowned a frown most people would have run away screaming from.

"I want you to know in advance, that if you actually turn into a lion and fry me, I will haunt you so fucking hard..." He said.

Then, he watched with a mixture of fascination and complete horror as his eyes forced him to conclude that yeah, maybe he had been a little too critical of astrology after all... or maybe the universe just hated him...

Whatever it means when your friend turns into a giant shiny lion.

Alexander was first consumed by a color that is somewhat darker than black, then what seemed to be a thousand tiny stars blinked into existence over his form. Within this darkness, between the silver flecks, purple and red swirls of color seeped up like bruises. His entire form swelled out and warped until it formed the shape of a lion roughly the size of a school bus.

Where Alexander once stood, a dense mass of black, silver, and the various colors of nebulae stared down at Robin with white eyes. It shook its mane, scattering a faint cloud of shimmering dust.

"Duck."

The voice came from everywhere at once, it seemed. The massive paw swiping lazily towards him, however, came from the right, and the right only.

Robin tried to get up, that course of action failed entirely. His legs felt like they were on fire....which seemed a tad ironic he thought. The irony struck him about a half second before the lion.

He saw the powerful paw sweep down at him, felt it as it smashed against him, and then, he was standing, his feet digging into the floor... he wondered idly how that was possible, but it was hard to think. He felt feverish, frantic. Everything was painted in lurid reds and blues, rippling about as though he was watching his life from somewhere far away. He still felt the lion's paw crushing against him, but the momentum had stopped.

Lurid flowers of flame burst before his eyes each time he breathed out. His gaze snapped upwards towards the giant lion's face. It was hard to make decisions... he just wanted to break out, to burn away the obstacles around him. He opened his mouth, and a sound like a hot furnace came out, louder than thunder. He realized that he was no longer in pain... that was nice. He seemed to be sinking though.

The space around him was glowing white, dripping away. It really seemed like that should hurt. Oh well... what was he doing again? A whorl of flame rippled across the form of the giant lion. Oh yeah, the giant lion....shit, everything was screwed... he really wanted to head-butt something. that was weird... Then he was falling.

"Oh" he tried to say, but it came out as the roar of flames again, which confused more than scared him. He landed with a thud, and immediately started sinking into the floor again... He was getting really goddamned tired.

As he drifted into unconsciousness he wondered idly why people were running away, and why there seemed to be fireworks. Oh well, not really important he supposed. Everything seemed to be going fine.

Alexander regretted everything. He stood in stunned silence for several heartbeats as his friend plummeted through the floor, and then through the floor below that. It was a peculiar thing, to watch people scatter from the flaming, melting child.

"Shit."

Alexander disregarded the men rushing towards him with guns and tranquilizers and plunged his paw down through the hole, making it wider as he did so. He raked Robin up between his claws, hissing all the while from the horrible burning pain shooting through his body. To burn flesh was one thing - but to burn cosmic energy?

As gently as he could, he took Robin in his teeth and waited (rather impatiently) for someone to send for help.

Robin blinked. He blinked again. His vision slowly cleared until he was able to see. What he saw made him briefly consider turning over and going the hell back to sleep. Alex was standing there...and so was what Robin reasonably considered way too many goddamned people. He took a moment to lock eyes with Alex, giving him a look that communicated quite well just how he felt about the whole "I'm turning into a lion now, hah, I'm gonna smack your shit" routine.

That done, he looked around at the various people crowding his bed. "Oh joy..." He croaked, finding that his throat was rather dry. "I have become the subject of the watching people sleep club."