(Aden's P.O.V)

Zombies. A staple in most fantasy fiction worlds. A reality in this very real and tangible world I was standing on. 300 meters was nothing to these creatures that were bearing down on us with the speed of Usain Bolt and the force of a bulldozer. I gave us 10 seconds at the most.

Masali snarled and jumped at me in an animalistic rage. Blackened vines rose up from the ground to spear through me. I pulled on the heat inside me and exuded the flames from my skin, taking great care not to burn my clothes. The air near me started burning a pale blue. The black vines were reduced to ash a meter away from my body, leaving behind a nauseating stench.

Masali or whatever the thing inside him was, s

growled in rage and fear. My hand stretched out to grab him by the neck, then I slammed him onto the ground with considerable strength. He instantly lost consciousness. I could feel the judgemental eyes of my former team, glaring at me. When I reached into my trench coat pocket, I felt Aqualad hold back Kid Flash through my air sense. I snorted, withdrawing a bottle with holy water, blessed by the priest back in L.A. It seems like Kid forgot about his beating, I mused… should I remind him? Yeah. I think I should. Soon.

I opened the bottle of holy water and sprinkled some on Masali's face. His body started thrashing about. His mouth opened and flying beetles escaped it, trying to fly to the mouth of the cave. A flame appeared in my palm. I swiped my hand towards the sky with a grunt. The bugs were fried by the fire and fell to the ground, smoking. The loud roar of anger and pain following the action made the zombies running towards us stop momentarily. Good to see my flames can hurt it.

"What the fuck was that?"

Kid Flash wondered loudly. I found it super easy, barely an inconvenience to ignore him. On the other hand, the Zombies/ Ghouls? renewed their mad rush towards us. This time in an even bigger frenzy, pulling closer and closer to my position. The only thing that slowed them down, being the boulders and the rocky terrain of the hill side. Already, many of the creatures had fallen and gotten taken out of the fight by the violent stampede. Leaving us with…200 or so? Damn. That is still a freakishly huge number.

"ADEN! We need to work together!"

Aqualad shouted at me. They had backed away slowly towards the edge of the trees.

"What?! Aqualad you can't be serious! This is the same guy…"

"Shut up Kid! Now's not the time!"

Superboy growled out. He then turned towards me,

"You can't take all of them on by yourself and you know it!"

He told me.

I spared a look at the Kryptonian clone and snorted,

"Watch me."

Saying that, I stepped over Masali's unconscious body and walked out of the thicket, closer to the edge of the foot of the hill. I settled into a firebending stance fluidly. Firebending is about breath control, I reminded myself.

"Aden! Fall back, you'll die!"

Aqualad's words made me want to vomit. Where was this concern when they were calling me out back at the Cave. I ignored them, using the anger to stoke the flame resting above my groin.

"He has a death wish!"

Kid Flash said while running back. My eyes hardened. Maybe I do. But what I do know is that a Firebender never gives in. My fire would keep burning so long as my spirit did. And spirit was something I had a lot of. I breathed in and felt the way the air filled my lungs and then imagined it interacting with the hot flames in my navel. Felt the way the air coaxed the flames out. My own body movements, helping to plot a course for the fire to dance. To move according to what I needed.

I stepped forward, leaning my upper body slightly to the front. My hands suddenly spread out to the sides. I bent my legs, bringing the arms to my hips. I felt the fire get compressed inside my chest. A ferocious mass of swirling energy ready to destroy. Fire was life but there cannot be life without death, therefore fire could be used to deathify anything as well. Ah deathify. Cool word. I might keep on using it. Maybe.

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I kept a tight hold on the fire and then spun. My hands both shot off from my hips in a quick motion. Large voluminous flames shot out of my fists. Unyielding and roaring like a tiger. Boom!!!! I timed the explosive beam like destruction wave of super hot flames with my exhalation. The first wave of monsters, the middle portion up until near the back, were fried by the massive yellow funnel of fire. Easily 100 feet long and covering a large surface area. The heat was oppressive. The light coming off of the attack lit up the night sky. I kept it up for one more split second, before my hands seized up in a burning sensation.

Smoke covered the surroundings for a few more minutes, obscuring the view. That attack had been no joke. I winced while lowering my hands. My face made a frown at the red cracks covering my knuckles. I was actually…injured. Not debilitating or anything like that but damn. I thought Firebenders couldn't be hurt by their own fire? Then again, I wasnt a regular Firebender. My elemental energy reserves were basically bottomless. The problem as I had seen, was my own body. There was a certain limit as to how much I could actually channel.

"He's grown stronger. Much stronger."

I heard Aqualad comment and rose up from my position. The wind obeyed my command and banished all the smoke and dust away from the surroundings. The scene that met us, made me widen my eyes too. A huge groove fanning out from the foot of the hill to the cave at the top had appeared. Red magma from the melted rock had pooled inside the groove and was rapidly cooling.

Of the 200 zombies…only stragglers remained. Probably 30 or 40 Zombies. My attack alone had taken out over 150 of them.

"Hell yeah."

I muttered while smiling. A loud roar rang out at that particular time. Leaving my ears ringing and my heart pumping. The fight was far from over. Looks like the boss is ready to reveal himself. The zombies on the outskirts of my attack stopped shambling about.

A silence dominated the battlefield. Only broken by the silent steps coming out of the cave. I looked on in anticipation. This is where my mission ends. At 17 hours. Not bad. Finally the big bad revealed himself or rather itself. A huge Lion, easily the size of an African Elephant appeared out of the mouth of the cave. That's one huge ass cat.

"I call bullshit. I've seen lions on Nat-Geo and they don't get as big as that."

I didn't even pay Kid Flash any attention. I just dealt with Zombies of all things, a huge Lion is where he draws the line? Fucking stupid. The lion was glorious and intimidating. We made eye contact through all that distance and I saw the derision in its eyes. This Lion was an apex predator and knew it.

That means...it wasn't afraid of my fire. Then again, demons come from hell. Hell is...hot obviously. To them it might feel like a cool shower. But my fire still afforded me an advantage over them in comparison to regular fire. For instance, I could burn their true essence. Their true forms when exposed to my flames along with them being on earth would leave the demons turned to crisp. Case in point, the flying beetles that had been possessing Masali.

This brought about many questions. How was Mnemoth doing this? He was a gluttonous demon. His whole shtick was eat, eat and eat. Yet from what we'd seen he was apparently playing Necromancer and beast tamer. Something was up, I tells ya. Something stank and it wasn't the sulphur.

I bent down and removed my blades from my inner pocket, placing them on a rock. My hand reached inside again and this time, I came out with the bottle of holy water. Firebending would probably do little to that Lion's shiny coat. But holy water? I whistled. This thing was Kryptonite to them.

I sprinkled the water on the blades and wiped them down, hoping the effect I was trying to apply was a success and that I had two holy daggers in my possession. I twirled them in the air and pointed one towards the Lion. 'I'm coming for ya.'

The Lion held my gaze and I got the impression that the fucker saw me more of a hindrance than a threat. It roared again and the Zombies sprang up, running towards us once more. The Lion turned imperiously and moved back into the cave, it's tail swishing in the air.

I looked at Aqualad and his team.

"I'll take on the big bad himself. The lion controlling the rest of the Walking Dead. You handle the stragglers and make sure you get those boys back to the village. And Aqualad? You better hope we don't meet again."

I coldly explained. I saw well hidden fear in Wally's eyes and smirked inwards. That just made my day.

"This is far from over Aden. I will beat you."

Superboy informed me before I could leave. And just to prove a point, the Fucker floated up with red flashing in his eyes. I widened my eyes a little. That explained why he was registering as strong in my senses. He now had access to the rest of Superman's powers.

I turned away.

'Show off and he couldn't even get rid of the horde of Zombies that were coming at us earlier.'