The Daughter of Iron Man

The Thing About Fire

I'm not usually surprised by what Elizabeth sets up for me in the training center, but I wasn't expecting anything quite this extreme.

When I walked through the door, I was greeted with at least 1/4 of the training center covered in what appeared to be black tarps, covering everything from the floor to the walls.

I stopped in the doorway, speechless as I stared at the tarps in confusion.

I could see and hear movement from behind one of the tarp walls, but I wasn't entirely sure what it was until Elizabeth emerged from behind the tarp.

Elizabeth was wearing a full body, skin tight black suit to match the black tarps. Everything was covered up to the top of her neck. Her light skin and platinum blonde hair stood out strongly against the black suit. If it was anyone else wearing that suit, they would appear threatening. The only reason Elizabeth didn't is because assassins don't usually have a warm smile on their face, and they wouldn't have a problem with squishing a bug.

"Hey Alice! How was school?" Elizabeth cheerfully yelled to ask me in her usual british accent.

Even though we've been working together for a while and I'm use to it, I still find her accent fun to listen to and occasionally, I'll even attempt to mimic it.

"It was, fine." I yelled back hesitantly, my response echoing off the walls. I was still distracted by the black tarps, and tried to figure out how she possibly could have gotten the tarps so high up the walls by herself.

I finally forced myself out of the doorway, and walked towards the bench that I usually dump all of my stuff on. On the other half of the bench, was Elizabeth's laptop and a few of her other belongings.

"What are we doing today?" I finally asked, not being able to figure it out for myself.

Elizabeth stopped messing with the tarps, and picked up a little cylinder. When she flicked something on the side, blue flames shot out from the top and before she even announced what we were doing, I figured it out. And at the realization, my heart dropped in panic.

"We're working on fire today!" She yelled happily, half dancing even with a lit blowtorch in her hand. Then finally she flicked the same switch, and the flames went out. Carefully, she put the cylinder back on the floor and continued working.

"Um, are you sure about this? We could just work on water more, or-"

Literally anything else.

"I'm sure about it, you're ready. You mastered water ages ago, it's time to move on to other things."

"Why don't we just stick with water and leave it there? I mean, you can do so much more with water than you can with fire." I pointed out, frantically trying to find a way out of this. When she realized I was panicking, she stopped what she was doing, and turned to face me.

"Alice, come here." She said in a calm and collected voice. Obediently, I walked over to her. "You are capable of so much more than you can imagine. With enough practice and precision, you can rearrange the molecular structure of anything you put your mind to and with that, you can save so many more lives. You have a gift, Alice, and gifts aren't meant to just sit there on display. They're meant to be used."

Part of me knew she was right, but another part of me hoped that she just made a mistake. It's scary knowing I have that much power. And while I can help and protect so many people with my abilities, I also have the capability of hurting so many more.

"What if the fire gets out of hand, and I burn the place down?" I suggested in a final attempt of at least putting this off. But by her expression and her determination, I knew there was no chance of delaying this any longer.