Put the Fire Out | [closed]

[Violet Schultz]

Violet walked toward the door, her eyes narrowed warily. Touching the door with her fingertips, she ran her hand down to the handle and pulled it open. The world went dark again, and when she could see again, she was alone again in a strange landscape. It looked like the maze-like alleyways of New York, only the buildings extended to the sky, with no end in sight. The uniform bricks lining the alley were varying shades of gray, and the black asphalt under her feet was cracked with age. The sky above was gray and cloudy, but the sun didn't cast a shadow and she couldn't tell a time of day or any way to keep track of direction by the shadow.

She could vaguely sense Blaze, as if from some great distance, but she could feel half a dozen other sources of inner flame in between them. The odd thing was that all of those inner flames felt like her own, with varying amounts of power in each of them. She couldn't distinguish them from herself. What on earth? There couldn't possibly be six of herself in the maze along with Blaze. Looking down, she realized that she was wearing her workout outfit; a black sleeveless shirt which showed her navel and a pair of baggy black cargo pants. She hadn't been wearing that when they'd entered the blue door.

a c r o s s t h e m a z e - -

A young girl of six looked around herself. The nondescript gray walls around her were so ugly compared to the walls of her room. In fact, the only pretty color was the yellow outfit that she wore. The yellow was so lovely, like a miniature sun! She skipped along the alleyways, taking turns at her leisure. She could feel a bunch of other warm fires in the maze somewhere. Maybe she could make a game out of it, and find them all individually! Her short black hair whipped around her face as she skipped faster and faster, heading toward the nearest fire.

"Hi!" she squeaked as she spotted a person.

He looked like a teenager, although she wondered why he was looking so confused and worried. Why should he be so unhappy when he was about to make a friend? Besides, shouldn't her bright and pretty yellow outfit make him happy, too? She skipped toward him and hugged him around the waist. She looked up at him with warm, trusting dark blue eyes. Wait until Mommy and Daddy heard about this adventure! She couldn't wait to introduce her new friend to them!

[William Talbot]

"Uhhh... Hi?" Will said as he was glomped about the waist by a young girl in a bright yellow dress, with shortish black hair that was shiny and soft, her eyes deep dark blue and her smile the sweetest thing he had ever seen...

But after a moment, it clicked, she was the girl from that one dream, only instead of dirty and scared, she was happy and looked to be a bundle of joy and energy, and more than that, she had a warmth about her, a fire that he could not mistake.
And of course the was the aura of youthful happiness, the kind of joy and awe of the world that only young children seemed to have, the gentle kindness of innocence that smelled of sunflowers and felt like sunlight.

"Violet?" he asked softly as he gently pried her off of him and knelt down, looking into her eyes and seeing almost uncontainable joy behind the dark deep blue orbs set in her pale sweet face. Resting his hand on her shoulder he looked at her, and started to think; the link was there, but was not all at once, as if the link was now less a sense and more of a place, like a driveway of sorts, it was there, leading him to her, but it also seemed to be where he was now as well, and that was confusing as all hell right now, almost as much as seeing the tiny younger version of his friend, dressed in such a bright color, one he'd never seen her wear in the time he had known her...

"Vi, do you know who I am?" he asked, since it seemed that she had no clue who he was, and that made some sense, seeing as she looked to be barely six or seven years old, little more than a pale cute waif of a girl...

[Violet Schultz]

"No, but I'm sure we'll be best friends forever!" she quipped, a broad smile crossing her face. "When we get out of here, you should come over! Mommy makes the best foie gras around!"

Her bubbly enthusiasm was such a contrast to Violet's usual quiet reserve, that it was almost shocking. Her eyes were full of energy, like most kids her age. The reverant love in her voice as she spoke of her parents showed the depth of the bond between them; a bond that was strengthened by the fact that she was an only child. This was Violet as she should have developed, full of joy and happiness, trusting upon first glance. She had no clue where her life would head from that point, and she was blissful in her ignorance. Her inner fire was sporatic at best, but with her cheery demeanor, there was little danger that she would lose control of it. Yeah, sure...

a c r o s s t h e m a z e - -

A huge explosion rocked the maze from a few hundred yards away. From her place on the other end of the maze, Violet lifted her head as she recognized her own inner fire again. What on earth was going on over there? She took off running, heading in the general vicinity of the blast. Where was she, and where did Blaze go? Why did it feel like there were copies of herself running around in this place, and why couldn't she get to them? She could vaguely hear what sounded like herself grumbling a stream of French curses. Excuse my French, indeed!

[William Talbot]

Will couldn't help but smile at the micro sized Violet, her enthusiasm was positively contagious, her smile like a ray of sunshine, and her aura pure joy. It was like a better look at the tiny peeks he had seen of Violet through the link, with all the other emotions and feeling filtered out and...

Wait a minuet...

Blinking for a moment William realized that this must be a part of Violets persona, a fragment of her emotional makeup, a physiological manifestation of her inner feelings.

But before that thought could fully set in, an explosion far off caught his attention, as well as the barest of tremors in the ground, a sudden feeling of anger teasing at Will's nose, the sharp bite of burning metal mixed with hot gasoline just barely reaching him, his empathic senses suddenly going crazy as he felt the presence of not only Violet, and this little happy sprite like version of her, but at least four or five more flickers of sweet hot cinnamon and lavender flavored heat scattered about this strange city-scape where for the first time in not long enough, he felt totally lost.


Rising to his feet, Will looked around some, his senses, such as they where, sharp as razor blades, ready to detect any kind of... Danger or threat that might show itself.
"Hmm, maybe we will Violet... C'mon petit, nous avons un ami à trouver..."
Will blinked for a moment as it dawned on him that A) Violet was likely speaking to him in French, and he had understood her perfectly, B) He had just spoken in passable French, and C) He didn't know he could speak French.

Anyway...

Will looked back down to Violet and gave her a smile as he reached down and took her small hand and gently lead her down the alley, his head on a swivel as he tried to pin down the closest source of heat, the next point of cinnamon and lavender hinted flame directly ahead, some distance away, on the other side of some buildings it seemed.

This was shaping up to be quite the experience...

[Violet Schultz]

Young Violet's eyes widened and then she laughed with glee. She could feel the fire through her sixth sense, and it showed her a glimpse of the area where the explosion had occured. There was a girl in the maze, and she looked kinda like her mommy! Maybe it was, and she could introduce her new friend to her. Something occured to her, and she looked up at the man. He was a tall man, but he didn't look old like Daddy. His thick hair was jet black, unlike Daddy, whose salt-and-pepper hair had always marked him as a man who was either getting up in his years or who was dealing with a great deal of stress. In his case, it was both.

"You know my name, but what's yours?" she asked.

a c r o s s t h e m a z e - -

"You -censored- think you can keep me in a -censored- cage like this?" her voice shrieked. "I'll -censored- show you!!"

Violet rounded the final corner to come across a carbon copy of herself. Confusion colored her face. The girl looked just like her, only she was in a frenzy, trying to destroy the gray brick walls and escape, apparently. She wore her hair tied back like Violet did when she was doing her morning welcome, and she wore a dark red outfit which looked just like her own, save the color.

"Jeez, cool it already," Violet scoffed.

"YOU?!" the red Violet snarled. "You're the -censored- who's been keeping me tied up all these -censored- years!"

"Down, girl," Violet growled. "You're never getting out of here again."

Violet turned her back, leaving the red Violet lashing out blindly against the walls. Without direction, anger could get one nowhere. She had denied herself the luxury of letting her anger out of control for years, ever since the one time that had ended so tragically for her parents. She still got angry, but she could keep herself in check. She pondered the encounter. It was like she was facing her anger personified. If that was anger, who were the others?

[William Talbot]

Will smiled down at the pint sized pyro then paused, and bent down to lift her up and set her atop a garbage can, so that she was closer to eye level with him, his height versus hers meant that she was eye level with his belt... belt? Hmm, Giving himself a fast once over, he found that he was dressed in what could be called the male version of Violet's normal workout attire; baggy gray cargo pants with a simple black leather belt, a faded blue sleeveless tee-shirt and in a slight twist, high topped army boots, sturdy but flexible...

Looking back at the yellow dressed sprite he smiled softly to her and held her hand as he spoke; "My name is William, and in another place and time, when you are older, like me, we meet, and while we argue and fight at first, very soon you become my best friend, and I yours, are we do many good deeds and have daring adventures..."

Will really started to wonder if he totally lacked any real restraint as far as his mouth went, but then, while this may not exactly have been real in a physical sense, for this little sliver of Violet's mental person, this was the real world, or at least her world, and his explanation was as simple and logical as he could figure it to be.


After looking down the alley, he looked back to her and almost blushed, his pale steely blue eyes dancing as he grinned at her and lifted her off the can and set her down, again finding her hand as he looked off to the building that blocked their line of sight and path, his senses telling him that there where now two Violet flames close to each other, and that one was very angry indeed, and the other was fairly calm.

Suddenly they where standing next to the building, as if transported there the two flames very powerful now in his head, and one of them was moving about and making all kinds of noise and such, the ground tremoring lightly under their feet.

"Stay behind me Violet..." Will said as he felt one flame move around a corner, heading for the cross street that was a half block away from them...

[Violet Schultz]

Violet turned as she felt Blaze's inner flame suddenly appear much closer by, along with a smaller version of her own inner flame. Her eyes narrowed as surprise entered her expression. It was her, only at six years of age. That was about the age that she had accidentally killed her parents, but from little Vi's expression, she didn't know about it. Violet wasn't going to be the one to tell her, and she warned Will through the link that he wasn't to tell her either. Violet was fairly certain that this was supposed to be "Happiness", since she looked just like Violet when she was actually still willing to express pure joy.

"You're not allowed to pick doors any more," Violet said to Will, only half joking. "Do you have any clue how we're supposed to get out of here?"

She looked around. The area seemed totally unfamiliar, and there was no end in sight. She had come in at a dead-end, so there was no getting out that way. They would have to find the other end of this maze of buildings. Plus, there were a few more emotions that they would probably meet. It was such a surreal experience, probably because it was in a dream. She couldn't help but wonder if this whole experience would affect the way Blaze felt about her, but she suppressed the thought before he could sense it. It wouldn't do for him to know that something like that was on her mind when there were much more important things to worry about.

Like getting out of there...

[William Talbot]

Will looked up and smiled as Violet, his Violet, the real one walked up and greeted them with a small smirk and a jest.

"I didn't pick it, I pointed it out, although I guess that's kinda the same thing right now..." he let go of the smaller Violet's hand and stepped forward, pulling Vi in close, and kissed the larger of the two on the cheek then rested his head on her shoulder slightly as he let out a sigh of relief, before letting her go and looking behind her for a moment.

"What was with all the noise and fireworks? It seemed like a one person riot over there. I sensed lots of anger and frustration, nothing I did I hope." he said teasingly just before another small tremor was felt. and he let her go as he turned to look back the other way down the street, a long straight path that led into a vanishing point in the strange skyline...

Looking back to tiny Violet, he smiled at her and nodded to the real deal; "See? It's you, and we're dear friends..." he then looked to the older Violet at his side, his eyes glowing for a moment before he laughed softly; "Hmm haha, okay, Violet, meet Happy Violet or Happiness, as if you didn't know, she is a part of your emotional makup, a fragment of your mind, given shape. Kinda cool really... Hmm, I wonder what, if anything, my happiness might look like?"[/color] Will pondered a moment, resting his hand on his chin in thought as the sounds of what he guessed to be Anger faded off, moving away from them.


Snapping out of his musings, Will shrugged and then closed his eyes and pointed down a street nearby; "Hmm... That way I guess, I can feel that kind of big empty space we where in before, its kind of like there and not all at once, whereas this is for sure a real thing, just not physical in the normal sense..."

In truth it was hard to lock down the sense of where, because this was not his own mind, things seemed to be ordered and layered differently, and considering that while he seemed to understand French when spoken, the street signs where incomprehensible to him, as if the characters where random scribbles jumbled together...

Add to that the random blurting of Violets thoughts, which, it seemed unless she made a direct effort to hide or move on from, he could hear as if she was whispering them into his ear, or show him like something on a TV, it made getting his own thoughts and senses organized and clearly thought out, a chore in the strictest and most simplest sense.[/i]

[Violet Schultz]

Violet sighed once and crouched on the ground, placing her palm flat on the bricks. Little Violet watched, her eyes round. She could feel the stirring of power within her older self, and she was intrigued by whatever the teenager had planned. She clung to Will's side to watch, her tiny fingers clutching his pantleg. With her round dark blue eyes, she looked between Will and older Violet, her mind only accepting what she saw through the lens of imagination. In her young mind, nothing was beyond the realm of possibilities.

"I'm going to get a floor plan of this place, so please try not to move," Violet said, closing her eyes. "Hopefully, anyway."

From her hand, heatless trails of flames spidered away in all directions. They rounded each corner, mapping out the area in Violet's mind as her sixth sense showed her everything in the flame's breadth. Younger Violet gasped in surprise. She hadn't explored this ability before. She was just discovering her powers, and yet she could sense a lot of what the older Violet could sense. Violet's eyes remained closed so that she could more clearly form the image in her mind, but the lavender glow was barely visible, even without her eyes being open.

With the maze of roads and alleys, it took a while for her to figure out everything that she would be able to glean from a short test like this. The flames extinguished after thirty seconds or so. Jeez, this place was enormous. She couldn't even find a border to it. She opened her eyes and stood again, the glow fading back to the normal color. She could sense that a couple of the other emotions had taken notice, but she wasn't worried about it. She usually kept her emotions pretty well in check.

"That wasn't as effective as I'd hoped," she admitted. "This place just seems to go on and on."

[William Talbot]

Will watched as little Violet held onto his leg and watched, both of them adhering to big Vi's request not to move, until she commented on how expansive the place seemed.

Twisting his face up Will turned on his heel, making a full circle, his brow knit up, and his eyes glowing softly; "Hmm, well from what my Empathy can detect, this is the bridge between your basal instincts and higher brain functions, the link between your conscious and subconscious, in essence, the core of your emotions, feelings and perceptions..." Will blinked for a moment, as he heard his own mothers voice echo in his mind, and then seemingly out into the air around them, her soft, rich voice just as he remembered it, with its almost otherworldly texture, like satin over flesh, smooth with a hint of rasp that was oh so sweet...


For an instant, Will was alone, an image of his mother stood before him, her soft pale face smiling at him in total pride and love, her sky blue eyes glowing softly, she was seemingly the only source of light in the place he was in, and all he could feel was himself and his mother, no Violet's and not Tim or Olivia or even Ruby, off in the distance to hint at the world around him, no for this instance he was alone with only the memory of his mother there with him...


Shaking his head, Will blinked, then wiped at his nose, a clear watery substance instead of his thick hot blue blood. So it seemed his will to protect Violet, er... Little Violet at least, from any unpleasantness was somehow changing the pounding headache and the nose bleed that would follow such an event into a slight dizzy spell and a harmless runny nose.

"Pardon me." he said a moment before sneezing, a tiny gout of blue hued flame slipping past his arm as he covered his face then sniffled slightly, his sudden affliction clearing up once he was able to get a grip on his senses again.
Looking at Vi, he peered into her eyes for a moment, the link buzzing with a single query, which was simply a look at what she had gathered in her little mapping exercise, and soon enough he found the layout, and realized that this place in her mind was insanely large, larger than any one place Will could think of ever being, as far as cites went.


"Okay uhh... Idea, how about I go up someplace and take a look around, I mean, we got in here through a door, maybe if we find that door again, we can get out?" Will looked at the buildings in puzzlement then walked up to a door and tried it, only to get smacked in the face with the door, and pushed back into the street.
"Ouch... Okay... Uh guess I'm going climbing." he said before he coiled his legs under himself, and launched up into the air, and landed on a ledge, then started to climb upward, but after a few minuets he looked up and realized that there was no top to reached, so he paused, and looked out over the cityscape...

"This is going to take a while, but we need to go that way!" he yelled down, pointing off into the distance, before he started to climb back down, hopped a bit every now and then his senses and instinct telling him that the door was in that direction...

[Violet Schultz]

Violet looked over in the direction he had pointed, not seeing anything of note. She shrugged and waited for him to come back down. She didn't have any better ideas, so she didn't mind if they went with his for now. The only thing that made the situation better was the knowledge that it was much more pleasant than any of the former nightmares. She didn't notice her younger self at her side until the little girl tapped her arm.

"You look just like Mommy," little Violet said, looking up at her.

Violet forced a smile and looked away. She turned as she felt another flame coming closer. If this as a reflection of her emotions, that was bound to be grief, maybe guilt. Even after all these years, it felt fresh. The pain of losing a parent was enough for anyone to deal with. The loss of both was monumental. The loss of both when it was one's own fault had shaken her to the core. She couldn't let her younger self know. She didn't know the ramifications of their interactions with these emotions. Would it translate into the real world?

"Let's get going," she called to Blaze. "If this is going to take a while, we might as well get started."

[William Talbot]

Will landed a few feet in front of the two girls, his knees bent as he had dropped from high up, but he stood up quickly and looked back at them, a soft smile on his face; "Yes, she is very pretty, and one day you will be too..." he looked down to little happy Violet and smiled, before jerking his head back some and turning; "Yeah, it's really far off, I sensed it more than I saw it, but I think that somehow, getting out will be up to you Vi."

Will waited for the girls to catch up with him before he started walking again, his senses also picking up on the other Violet someplace close by...

"You know that we may end up confronting all of your dominate emotions in here, don't you?" he said softly over the link to her, unsure if little Violet could tap into it or not...


He cut a quick glance at Vi as they walked, suddenly he was unsure if they should be leading Happiness about like this, unsure if the interactions of her emotions with each other, since he was rather unaccustomed to this type of situation, although he felt that he should get used to it, just in case...

[Violet Schultz]

"Can't wait," she replied, her inner voice flat. Her eyes were distant as they walked, and no word passed in her thoughts or through her lips that Will could detect, deep in her own mind though they were. She didn't know why something like this had to happen to her. Sure, Slade was a creep and wanted to kill her and all that, but why choose a poison that would trap her in her mind like this? Why not just kill her straight-out? The only thing that she could think was that he wasn't after her life. If he wasn't after her life, what could he be after? Given the circumstances, she could only guess that he was after something other than herself.

Could it be...Will? He'd certainly targeted Will in the past, going through his loved ones to hurt him. What did Slade think would happen from this? She die slowly, and Will sit by, unable to help? If the situation were reversed, she didn't know if she would've been able to cope emotionally if Will died. His own emotional state wasn't likely the same as hers, but given his past it was possible that the effect would have been the same. Maybe Slade wasn't trying to kill her, but was rather trying to break Will. Or maybe he was trying to do both. She could understand why Robin despised the man so much.

In any case, she hated the situation. She didn't like this forced introspection, and she especially didn't like having someone else around to watch, even feeling as she did about Will. This was only bound to get worse. It couldn't be so simple as this. Sure, she could control her emotions well, but control was simply putting a leash on them. She'd been denying herself the luxury of giving herself over to emotion for years, and if Will was right, she was going to have to face what she'd been avoiding for years, in all its glory.

[/i]

[William Talbot]

Will cut a glance to Vi, a slightly amused look on his face as they walked, his mind open and senses sharp, things seeming to be quiet and calm for now, the path clear, stretching out into the horizon, or whatever one would call it, since this was the inside of a persons mind....

This was still rather dumbfounding for him, but he was too busy rolling with it all to complain, for now.

As they walked, his mind wandered about, unknowingly, along the same lines as Violet's, his mind mulling over his memories of Slade, and the thing was, just about all of them where repressed, buried for his own protection and while part of him didn't want to remember, his curiosity was slowly digging them up anyways, his musings and thoughts coming to a select few conclusions...

The two that made the most sense was that, A) Slade wanted Violet out of the picture, either dead or nuteralized, and that was so himself was an easier target, and so that he would be harder to find, since Vi could find Will next to anywhere (so far as they could figure anyways) and then that pointed at B) Slade wanted Will back, for himself, but as to why exactly he wanted Will and Violet to fight or for just one of them to live, still wasn't clear and that was what truly troubled Will, not so much that he didn't know what was going on, but that such a man as Slade did, and was using situations and people as if they where chopsticks or something...


After what seemed both a long time and only a few steps, Will paused, and looked about, then turned to Happy Violet and knelt down, his ears buzzing and nose twitching slightly as he smiled at the smaller girl and rested a hand on her shoulder, his voice low and kind; "Hey Violet? Listen, you need to go back where you where before okay? Right back there..." He pointed almost directly back to where they had first met, before going on and explaining himself; "The road ahead is going to be scary and dangerous, and we don't want you hurt or scared okay? Just go right back, over there, straght on then to the left, you'll see it easy..." he smiled warmly at her before he gave her a small hug and whispered in her ear; "Thank you Violet, you've made me happy too, and I know we;re going to be friends for a long long time... Be safe little one."

He let her go and then stood, and waved to her as she slowly moved away, until he was sure he could talk to the real Violet; "I think we're about to find something she doesn't need to be exposed to..." he looked at her then looked back, after Happy Violet; "I landed not too far from her... Telling I guess, but maybe I'm reading too much into all of this... Maybe..." He shrugged before he turned and started walking again, heading into the unknowm, hoping for an exit...

[Violet Schultz]

"Well, alright..." little Violet quipped, her broad smile wavering for just a moment before she beamed again. "As long as you're sure I'll see you soon!"

She dashed off, disappearing around the corner. Her tiny footfalls could be heard echoing as she went, louder because of the stillness of the air. Violet watched her go for a moment before turning to Will. The explanation wasn't entirely necessary for her, connected as they were, but she was grateful that he had sent her back to wherever they had come from. Honestly, it made her a little uncomfortable to have that part of her so near. It gave her a sense of just what she had lost, within herself rather than outside of herself. She continued walking, not answering Will. Lost in introspection as she was, she didn't realize that he was talking at first.

"I trust you won't tell Tim anything that you see in here," she said quietly, her blue eyes straight ahead. "He has told no one anything of my past, at my request, and for obvious reasons I would rather this stay out of public knowledge as well."

She sensed rather than saw the next emotion appear before them, stepping out of the shadows of the walls like some supernatural shadow creature. It didn't look like Violet, but it did look a lot like someone she hadn't seen in twelve years, save in dreams. It was her mother, and her dreary gray-blue clothes didn't match the angry fire in her eyes. Violet could only guess which emotion this one was. The teenager opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, the older woman struck her hand forward. The blast of kinetic energy took Violet by surprise, throwing her back with a violence she was unprepared for. She hit the wall behind her hard and dropped to her knees.

This was a kind of strength and skill beyond what Violet herself had ever been able to display. There was no hint of flame, no light or heat in the blast. This was pure kinetic energy. Her mother stepped forward, not communicating but for the accusing glare of her burning eyes. Violet looked up, a trail of red blood streaming down her forehead from the impact. She didn't wipe it away from her eyes, but there was an emotion on her face that she rarely showed. Fear. Yet this woman was not the representation of fear. Violet knew what it was from the expression on her mother's face.

This was Guilt.

"It's your fault, Violet. It's time you paid for your sins."

((Reading through past threads, I realize that Will doesn't know pretty much anything about her past. Everything that he knows is based in those dreams.))