“You may wake up now,” said the Uncle from behind.

Todd opened his eyes to embers floating up to a canopy of thin grey branches and diamond leaves under a misty white, sunless sky. He sat upright to examine his arms: molten plates separated by blazing veins that the embers strained to escape from. His reflection showed his whole body to be the same. The silvery water beneath him seemed bottomless with the grey sawgrass around him being the only other proof that it was shallow.

He thoughtlessly reached out. He felt a rumbling pass over his body as swelling moved down his arm to his hand and from his bubbling palm, a jet of fire and lava burst forth. The fire scattered through the air, harmlessly licking at the tree branches before flickering away, while the lava sunk into the depths of the water.

“Please tell me I get to do this in real life. This is badass.”

“With practice, now that you know what you are working toward, yes. You may master both aspects, the fire and the lava, the raging passion and the boiling peace, if you have the will to. That is what we are here to find.”

Todd finally saw what was behind him. It was a low, teardrop-shaped tree island much like the one they were on in the waking world. The Uncle’s body was the same shining white as the sky and sat at the trunk of the tree. I was kind of expecting an alligator.

“So what is this place?”

“This is Cheetum Hammock. At least, what’s left of it. Long ago it was drained of its essence and sooner ago it was excavated for limestone.”

“Oh… it’s still really pretty.”

“It is a reminder of how much has been lost. It is where I build something new: you, for instance.”

Todd passed through the water that gave way without a single ripple and came upon the island to sit with Uncle Deimos.

“I know we just started but how do we get out now? Or is this like a time chamber thing?”

“We can stay forever and leave anytime. But this trip will have been wasted if you do not resolve what holds back your heart.”

Resolve what’s holding me back? Todd thought back to what he saw in only his short time with them. He had seen guns before. He held them and shot them for fun. The people who carried them, friends and enemies, meant them as a warning. He saw firsthand how rarely bravado translated into the willingness to use them. They only came out under the brashest circumstances, kicked up by the heat of emotions, and disappeared as fast as they arose. Just as his own flames flared up then dispersed the other day. But here, guns were not a warning of what may happen, they were a declaration of what will come to pass. It was cold intention that saw them picked up as if they were car keys.

“You guys… kill people right?’ Uncle did not budge. “I mean of course you do. I’m not blind. I guess… I’ve always wanted to fight something—fight for something. But when I stop and think about crossing the line—about having to cross the line to reach a goal—I freeze up. I know fire can be used for a lot of other things but all I can imagine is someone burning alive in front of me and I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Fire can do other things besides burn? Can you tell me about them?”

“Well, it can cook. It can make light. It can… weld things together. It can… keep you warm?”

“Fire can only do those things because it burns. If it did not burn, it would not be fire. It would not be light or heat either. Just as life relies on death, there cannot be creation without destruction. You have been granted responsibility over death and destruction: a grave responsibility that you are already aware of. Just as Aaliyah Folious brings healing to the world, you will bring ruin to what cannot be allowed to stand. Just as the forest fire burns away the underbrush to make way for new growth, you wield the power to turn the whole world to ash so that a new phoenix may rise. With that responsibility in mind, you must ask: what is the goal you have in mind? What is worth setting a man or a world ablaze that could not be achieved without doing so? What is the future you want to bring about?

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Here, in Cheetum Hammock, the mind was clear as the water and thoughts rolled as easily as a brook. The inhibitions of society fell away to the current of raw emotion.

What is my goal? We’re here to destroy the Pantheon, right? Why destroy the Pantheon? Because they want to imprison me. If that was all, I could have just suppressed my magic. Is it because they imprison other people? There are plenty of prisons and prisoners beyond Tartarus, so what was it that bothers me? Even when I see the supposedly free—GalvanGal. Aliyah, Zariah, WhiteOut, FatMan, Max Force—something about them just rubs me the wrong way. Now my brother has joined them. What is this feeling I can’t put away?

As those thoughts streamed through his mind, so too came a memory that the scenery of Cheetum Hammock changed to fit. Kenny was there. Todd was picking him up from cram school. There was a small window of leeway between the school and getting home. At the time, Todd was more concerned with getting out of the house for his own sake. But that day, Kenny had something to show him.

Kenny's mutation—as they understood it at the time—was so taxing that he would throw up as soon as he used it. But, on top of all his other studying and practicing, Kenny was training his body to handle the mutation better. It was still only for a moment before he threw up again. Todd couldn’t remember what Kenny did to show it off, he probably just ran around like usual. But he remembered the smile on his brother’s face. Even as his guts were spilling down his chin, he was smiling. The only other time he saw his brother smile like that was when he showed his drawings.

“I kept pushing him forward, despite the danger,” Todd began, “because it was one of the only times I saw him smile. I wanted to push forward because I knew that I was putting us in danger. Then it came. And I ran away. I wanted to protect my brother but in the end I fled.”

“Why not join the Pantheon then? You could have suppressed your power to make it seem harmless and enjoyed a comfortable, provided-for life alongside him. He seemed to be smiling just fine now that he’s in the upper echelon of the Pantheon.”

“Yeah, I saw the news. They made him a licensed member of the Pantheon and brought him up on stage to smile. That smile wasn’t real. That kind of smile is put on for other people to see. A real smile is one that can’t be held back. He always said he wanted to be a hero but I know that there’s more to it than that. He wants to be accepted, appreciated for who he is but the Pantheon isn’t that. It’s a tool meant to prop up the system for the benefit of those already entrenched in power. The mutants are paraded around in public, but they’re nothing but pets on a leash; if any of them strayed they’d be put down. Whether it delays the inevitable or enables something worse, I know laying down and letting other people decide my future is never the answer.” Todd was emboldened by a sweltering in his core that continued to rise as the plates in his form swelled to a burst of flame that lashed all around him, “I want a world where people can smile freely, the kind of smile that can’t be held back. Without fear or expectations. If I have to burn down the world to do that, then I will.”

“We understand each other perfectly, then.”

Todd was thrown back into the waking world where his flesh ran with blood rather than brimstone. His stomach churned, his ears rang, and his vision was blurred to all but an emerald light. He felt warmth smoldering from within his body and the scratches from stingray spines were cauterized. As the ringing subsided he could hear a voice calling to him. Auntie Chen?

“Hey, you alive?” She was spitting corn kernels as she spoke. She pulled him up to sit him straight.

“I hope so. I made a pretty big promise. It’d suck if I died.” Todd rubbed his dirty hands on his eyelids to little effect. She watered him, both fed into his mouth and splashed on his face and hands, as the emerald light still loomed over his returning sight.

Seeing clearly now, he turned to Uncle’s grave to find him sitting up with flesh half sloughed off from an emerald fire and bracing against the edge of the grave. The fire had no heat, yet it burned all the same. Todd’s heart raced but his panic was calmed when he realized no one else was reacting to it. Not even Uncle himself flinched. This must have been what they meant by offloading the stress. Uncle would endure the pain so that others could reach their full potential.

To make sure this wasn’t a waste, Todd resolved to fulfill Uncle’s faith in him. Even if that meant destroying the whole world.