Firestarter Pt. 2

In fairytales the ages sixteen or eighteen are the magical life changing ages; usually on birthdays.  Not so with Aiden and me.  Our life changed a couple months after we turned seventeen.   I, being a redhead, tend to have a short tempter.  I also, admittedly love to argue. Those two traits combined led to a verbal scrap with one of the neighbors.   He didn't particularly care for the fact that a "mere girl" was winning.  

I live in a tough neighborhood.  Our argument led to knives being drawn.  Unfortunately he had me outmatched in the fact he was bigger (not that hard considering I'm a twig), stronger, and more skilled.  He managed to pin me to the ground and was in the process of introducing me to the blade of the long knife he held.

His knife, in the process of trying to find my heart caught on my ribs.  He had lousy aim.  I remember it hurt…it hurt a lot.  Then I remember the heat.  Holy smokes it was hot; in the dead of winter and I was burning up.  My attempted killer suddenly screamed and I was distracted from the taste of blood in my mouth.
  
He rolled off of me shrieking in pain.  At that point I noticed he was on fire.  At first I thought it was my dad.  He's the only cause of spontaneous human combustion that I had known.  The screaming eventually got louder as the flames intensified.  It responded to nothing that was attempted to put it out.  Finally he collapsed a burnt husk of a man.  I personally was gradually numbing out; shock as I understand.  But my dad, my hero, was here, wasn't he?  He'd help me, wouldn't he?  Just before I fell unconscious I wondered why he hadn't come.

I woke up in a bed with an IV and machines beeping in the back ground.  I recognized the room.  I was in the private hospital in the Hellhound Den.  My hiss of pain alerted my watcher to my awakening.  Green eyes and red hair entered my field of vision.  The spiked style and tattoos told me who was sitting over me; my dad.

Initially I wasn't exactly coherent.  Pain and medication tend to do that to a person.  I wasn't able to find out what had happened exactly until about a week later.  Turns out it hadn't been my dad that had set my attacker on fire, it had been me.  The reason no one had come for me right away was because Aiden had exploded at practically the same time.  Dad was dealing with that.  Fortunately I was found fairly early.  I didn't gain anything more than a nearly invisible scar…and fire.

Dad would take both of us in hand after that.  He knew how to control the fire that burned in his veins; he planned on teaching us to do the same.  Our arena was a large open space; our targets creatures known as heartless.  Aiden picked up control fairly quickly; me…not so much.

Aiden's low level of power came to his hand like a tame puppy; mine was more like a wild beast.  I was permitted to ride but I didn't hold the reins.  Dad did what he could to control what I couldn't.  His fire hadn't come to his hand easily either but he had finally mastered it.  In time I could probably do the same.   In the meantime I needed help so I wouldn't randomly burn things down.

Over the next couple years Dad and I grew particularly close.  I mean, we were close before, but now it was extra tight.   Years of work and yet my shaky control over what I was didn't improve.  I don't know how many I've killed accidentally in losing control and to be honest, I don't want to know.   Either way, when Sephiroth came around next he predicted that within the next few years I would die; my fire would turn around and consume me.   What a depressing thought, right?

Dad and I struggled with a way to find a way out of Sephiroth's prediction.   No one wants to hear they're about to die.  Well, most people.  Anyway, about that time reports of strange mass killings filtered down to Mom through her sources.  It wasn't just one or two murders…it was entire towns and then cities.  As more and more reports flooded in, the murderous army was identified; the walking dead.  We had just hit our zombie apocalypse.  

Now zombies don't respond to too much since they're already dead.  Completely blowing their head off or burning them to a crisp seems to be the only way to permanently kill them.   Most of the mercenary organizations became involved in the fighting as it was our heads that were in danger too.  Mom was especially in high demand.  Not so much because of her spies but because of the three weapons of mass destruction under her rule; us.
That being said, Dad, Aiden and me were sent all over the world to fight hordes of zombies. I was never sent alone.   When my threshold for control is up and I overheat I either blow up everything in a square mile (more if there are flammable materials around) or I pass out.  Neither is good for my health.   Unfortunately there's only so much three fire elementals can do even as awesome as my dad is.  Spread as thin as we were, we were able to delay things and that was it.  

Aiden and I were somewhere in Europe when we encountered a new ally; nearly roasted him upon our meeting because like the rest he was a zombie.  Unlike the others however, he could talk and he could reason with us.  Eventually all three of us had to retreat and Carter (that was the zombie's name) asked to talk to the people in charge.  Figuring that Mom was probably the best person at the moment, we took him home.  Apparently Carter is Sephiroth's apprentice and he worked for the God of Vengeance.  He had been sent to investigate the odd zombie uprising.  He was surprised to find out that we knew Sephiroth too.  

Carter and I were sent to upstate New York since a town up there seemed to be an origin point.  It was full of dead people that was for certain and these ones were slightly smarter than the usual variety.   We took refuge in a building somewhere in the middle of town when I began to overheat and Carter went off to do his own thing for a bit.  Minutes later the zombies found me.

I'm not a bad fighter but taking on a horde of zombies when you're already exhausted as well as almost out of firepower is hard for anybody.  They got me.  I could feel my blood seeping onto the floor and myself getting weaker.  But I had a secret weapon.  If I was going to die, I was going to take them all out with me.  My blood is just as flammable as the rest of me.  One spark sent everything up in an inferno.   It was comforting to know that my killers wouldn't survive my death.
  
When things died down, I felt cold…it had been years since I felt that.  It was almost nice.  Then he showed up.