Post by Pyro on Oct 1, 2006 13:08:58 GMT -5
After the conversation on the beach with Mystique, which had left him feeling decidedly uncertain as to whether it had gone the way either of them expected, Pyro had headed out to the training yard.
In the past few days, he'd spent much of his time working on the beach with Dharma. Mystique's return to the island, however, had left him feeling restless and unsure of himself. Not that he hadn't always been fairly unsure of himself, of course, only now it was worse.
So he decided it was time to head out to the training yard and work off some of his tensions by, well, quite frankly, by blowing the absolute shit out of stuff. If that wasn't a good stress reliever...
Before Baltimore, before he had gotten a tighter handle on the abilities that he was gifted with, Pyro would have spent a productive hour or so hurling super-heated fireballs at the oil barrels and assorted debris that made up the targets in the training ground. Someone, presumably Gill, replenished the items periodically, but there were always smoking remains of someone else's practise session.
But he'd moved beyond fireballs now. He looked around the yard thoughtfully for a few moments before flicking a fireball into his palm and hefting it.
Something was bothering him and he had no idea what it was. Since Emma had helped him over his mental issues, he'd not been the same - and Mystique's return was starting to reinforce that suspicion. He'd never considered himself that competent as a leader anyway, but something about the way things were going was making him feel even less so.
He threw the fireball between his palms, then contemplated it for a moment. In a surprisingly agile move, he hurled it towards the nearest barrel, then encouraged it to stop mere millimetres from its target, which it did. Another mental nudge and it became a wrap-around fiery 'prison'. It was unlikely that the barrel would try to escape anyway, but if it had been sentient, it'd have been pretty badly burned if it had tried.
Letting his arms hang by his side, he nudged a streamer of flame from around the barrel to loop around the next one and then form a similar wall of flame.
He followed the same pattern until seven of the barrels were similarly 'penned in'.
He contemplated his 'prisoners' for a few moments.
"Do you know," he said, striving for 'casual', "that all I have to do is squeeze my thoughts inwards? And all of you will be so much history. Or I could be merciful..." He relaxed his control on the flame briefly, allowing the heat to lessen somewhat. "But you know what?"
The flames flared furiously and he willed the fires to an extraordinarily high temperature that caused all seven barrels to explode one after the other with a lot of noise. One after the other. Like little dominoes.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bangbangbang!
"I don't feel very merciful right now," he shouted, over the noise.
As the last of the barrels exploded he knew a moment of exultation. He still had it. He had just been having trouble tapping it. And he couldn't help but wonder if Emma had done more inside his head than she had let on.
He spent a little time simply creating fire constructs - for no other reason than the fact that he could. The fire eagle that had once given him so much trouble was now the easiest thing in the world, and fairly soon he had four of them positioned at each corner of the yard, swooping in unison to the centre where they flamed with great intensity.
"Yeah," he said, aloud. "Yeah, I can do this."
In the past few days, he'd spent much of his time working on the beach with Dharma. Mystique's return to the island, however, had left him feeling restless and unsure of himself. Not that he hadn't always been fairly unsure of himself, of course, only now it was worse.
So he decided it was time to head out to the training yard and work off some of his tensions by, well, quite frankly, by blowing the absolute shit out of stuff. If that wasn't a good stress reliever...
Before Baltimore, before he had gotten a tighter handle on the abilities that he was gifted with, Pyro would have spent a productive hour or so hurling super-heated fireballs at the oil barrels and assorted debris that made up the targets in the training ground. Someone, presumably Gill, replenished the items periodically, but there were always smoking remains of someone else's practise session.
But he'd moved beyond fireballs now. He looked around the yard thoughtfully for a few moments before flicking a fireball into his palm and hefting it.
Something was bothering him and he had no idea what it was. Since Emma had helped him over his mental issues, he'd not been the same - and Mystique's return was starting to reinforce that suspicion. He'd never considered himself that competent as a leader anyway, but something about the way things were going was making him feel even less so.
He threw the fireball between his palms, then contemplated it for a moment. In a surprisingly agile move, he hurled it towards the nearest barrel, then encouraged it to stop mere millimetres from its target, which it did. Another mental nudge and it became a wrap-around fiery 'prison'. It was unlikely that the barrel would try to escape anyway, but if it had been sentient, it'd have been pretty badly burned if it had tried.
Letting his arms hang by his side, he nudged a streamer of flame from around the barrel to loop around the next one and then form a similar wall of flame.
He followed the same pattern until seven of the barrels were similarly 'penned in'.
He contemplated his 'prisoners' for a few moments.
"Do you know," he said, striving for 'casual', "that all I have to do is squeeze my thoughts inwards? And all of you will be so much history. Or I could be merciful..." He relaxed his control on the flame briefly, allowing the heat to lessen somewhat. "But you know what?"
The flames flared furiously and he willed the fires to an extraordinarily high temperature that caused all seven barrels to explode one after the other with a lot of noise. One after the other. Like little dominoes.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bangbangbang!
"I don't feel very merciful right now," he shouted, over the noise.
As the last of the barrels exploded he knew a moment of exultation. He still had it. He had just been having trouble tapping it. And he couldn't help but wonder if Emma had done more inside his head than she had let on.
He spent a little time simply creating fire constructs - for no other reason than the fact that he could. The fire eagle that had once given him so much trouble was now the easiest thing in the world, and fairly soon he had four of them positioned at each corner of the yard, swooping in unison to the centre where they flamed with great intensity.
"Yeah," he said, aloud. "Yeah, I can do this."
