"They say your flame reflects your soul...
…but what if my soul doesn't want to burn at all?"
—Renzo Guevara
---
BOOM.
The alley shook like the breath of a waking god. Walls groaned. Smoke coiled upward like serpents from cracked asphalt. Somewhere in the distance, car alarms wailed, but here — in this narrow cut between tenements and forgotten factories — there was only heat.
Renzo Guevara stumbled backward, chest heaving. He tasted ash in the back of his throat. His fingers clenched tighter around the brown paper bag pressed against his ribs. Inside: a bottle of off-brand medicine and two packets of cough suppressants.
All for his sister.
She hadn't been able to sleep for days. That morning, her breaths had come in rasps, her body convulsing in shivers under their threadbare blanket.
He'd begged the pharmacist for a discount. Swallowed his pride. He didn't expect to be hunted the moment he left.
Yet here he was.
A figure emerged from the smoke. Not just a man — a Flameborn.
The stranger's skin glowed orange like molten steel. Sparks dripped from his knuckles. Flame danced along his arms with eerie control, as if gravity itself feared him.
"Renzo Guevara," he rumbled, voice like stone grinding on metal. "They said it stirred in you. That you flared during the quake last week. Thought I'd see it myself."
Renzo's back hit the wall. Graffiti peeled under his shoulder. The wind shifted, blowing hot and wrong.
"I don't want to fight," he said. His voice betrayed nothing, but his legs were ready to bolt. "I don't even know who you are."
The stranger tilted his head. "You're unranked. Untrained. Yet your name reached Ignis Dominion. That's not nothing."
That name hit harder than any flame.
Renzo blinked. Ignis Dominion? The fabled training citadel, carved into the ruins of Mount Vatra. Where only the most gifted flame wielders were taken. He'd thought it was myth — a place whispered about by kids pretending their tempers were powers.
He had no time to process.
The man moved.
FWOOM. The air lit like oil catching fire.
A fist blazed toward Renzo's head.
He ducked — barely. The punch struck the wall behind him, reducing it to molten stone. Heat licked the back of his neck.
Renzo rolled over broken bottles and shattered tile. Pain lanced up his side, but he didn't stop. He came up on one knee, chest burning.
> He's going to kill me.
The man turned. "C'mon. I want to see it. Make it burn."
"I'm not like you."
"No," the stranger agreed, flame growing brighter. "You're worse. You're hiding it."
---
Ten Years Ago.
A boy, twelve, kneeling beside a broken swing set. His hand bleeding. Fire dancing across his fingertips like it belonged.
His father's voice: "Don't show that to anyone. Do you want them to take you away?"
The boy had cried. The fire had cried with him.
---
The memory crashed through Renzo's mind like a freight train. It brought something with it — something heavy, buried deep, now awakening.
Heat.
Not from outside — but from within.
A tightness in his chest. A pressure behind his ribs. Not fear.
> Anger.
Not loud or wild. Not out of control.
It was slow. Controlled. Focused. Like a silent scream that had waited years.
He stood.
The stranger paused. "Finally."
A glow sparked in Renzo's palm. Small at first. An ember, red-orange, gentle.
Then — WHOOSH.
Flames coiled upward along his arm. His eyes widened as the fire didn't burn him. It curved with him. Breathed with him.
His heartbeat matched the flickers. The pain from the glass in his palm dulled, swallowed by the fire. His skin shimmered — not melting, but pulsing with heat.
The stranger's eyes narrowed. "You just awakened. Damn. That's... pure."
Renzo didn't respond.
He moved.
---
Time bent.
The world slowed. He felt the crackle of fire on his skin. The weight of gravity shifting. The sound of sizzling paper. The man's eyes — shocked, afraid — even before Renzo's fist connected.
FWOOM.
An arc of red flame roared forward. Not elegant. Not trained. But raw — volcanic.
The man flew backward like a puppet cut from strings, his body smashing into a dumpster. Metal screeched. Smoke bloomed in a cloud. Something groaned and fell inside.
Silence.
Renzo stood, hands trembling, chest tight.
He looked down. His palms still burned. But it wasn't pain.
It was alive.
And it was looking back.
---
A voice — not his own — curled in the back of his mind.
> "Do you feel it now?
You've always had it. You were just afraid."
He turned in a slow circle.
No one else was there.
But the alley had changed.
Graffiti scorched. Trash vaporized. Heat warped air. And around his feet, embers floated like stars in water.
> What did I just become?
Then, footsteps.
Not the man he had hit.
Two new figures emerged at the mouth of the alley. Robes black as coal, their collars marked with flame-shaped sigils. Their eyes glowed faintly — not with power, but focus.
One held a small obsidian orb. It hovered in their hand, rotating slowly.
Renzo stepped back. His flame sputtered.
"Renzo Guevara," the first said. Her voice was firm, clipped, but not unkind. "You are hereby summoned by order of Ignis Dominion. You have triggered a spontaneous flare under civilian threat. That classifies as an Ember Awakening."
"Wait," Renzo said. "What… I didn't—"
The second person raised a palm. "You have a choice. Come with us. Or stay, and risk being hunted by others like him."
The dumpster groaned. The man Renzo had struck was stirring.
Renzo stared at his hands. The flame was fading now, his heartbeat slowing. But the fire wasn't gone.
Just waiting.
He looked up at the two strangers.
"Who was he?" Renzo asked.
"A rogue Blazer," the woman replied. "One of many who hunt unstable flame-bearers before the Dominion can reach them."
"Why?"
"Because unstable power burns more than buildings."
She took a step forward. "It burns futures."
---
Renzo glanced toward the street beyond the alley — where his sister waited. Her cough. Her shaking hands. The medicine in the crushed paper bag still by the wall.
Then, to his palm — still red, like a promise.
---
"I'll come," he said quietly. "But only after I deliver something."
The two Dominion agents exchanged a glance.
"Ten minutes," the woman said. "We'll be waiting."
---
As Renzo ran into the dark, away from the flames he'd unleashed, the voice in his head whispered once more:
> This is only the beginning.
The red is only the first flame.
What waits at the end... is void.