The hivemind is conquering for me?

”Lena, seriously, where are you taking me? This looks really sketchy.” I said as she had brought me to an underground portion of the college and was dragging me through a series of winding corridors.

”Apollo, will you relax? Geez, it’s like you think I’m taking you somewhere nefarious, just enjoy the surprise. Now come on, we are almost there.” She said, ultimately causing me to resign to my fate.

She was right though, when she said we were almost there as we eventually arrived in front of a large door. Lena then went from leading me to hugging my arm tightly. ”Ya ready?” She asked playfully, causing me to sigh.

”As ready as I can possibly be.”

Lena smiled hearing that and we then walked towards the door, as I pulled it open with ease I suddenly raised a Thermokinetic shield in front of myself like I did when Sol’s coronal mass ejection hit home world.

A torrent of fire then hit the shield and began to dissipate before shortly stopping as the fire torrent was directed elsewhere.

”Hey! Fuckers! Are you trying to singe us! Good thing my bestie’s fire is better than all of yours or we would be suing right now!” Lena screamed as she walked into the room, prompting a group of around one hundred to look in our direction.

There was a dead silence in the air as Lena walked forward before someone yelled back. ”Sorry! I got pushed! It got away from me, but look you are fine and to be honest could do with a few more burns. You want one?”

Lena waved her hand. ”Nah, maybe later, I only really like self afflictions to be honest, but that’s irrelevant. I brought a new friend. Look! Everyone, say hello to Apollo, my best friend!”

The whole room then turned to me in unison and I got slightly freaked out. ’What are they? Some sort of hivemind?’ They all stared at me in silence before all at the same time smiled and yelled.

”Apollo!”

The crowd then all ran forward and began surrounding me and cheering. ”Flame! Flame! Flame! Flame!”

The crowd continued chanting flame and getting the memo, I raised my hand and manifested a small ball of fire. Everyone then went utterly silent followed by ”Oooohhh Ahhhhh!” Shortly after I stopped fueling the flame and it disappeared. Everyone seemed to come out of the trance they were in and looked amongst one another before.

”Whooo!!!”” ”What was that!” ”So pure!” ”Burn me!” ”Purify me!”

Everyone sound basically identical as they shouted all the same stuff in excitement before looking up to the ceiling and

*FWOOSH*

Fire erupted from almost everyone in one form or another and blasted into the ceiling which I quickly noticed was not a normal ceiling. It was some sort of glass and behind it water that was beginning to boil at all the fire.

Lena then jumped onto my shoulders and proudly declared. ”My best friend has the best fire here! Does anyone want to duel him!?!”

”YEAH!” So many people suddenly roared in utter excitement and turned their eyes towards me, flames in their hands and that was when I realised.

’Oh my days... Are they all like this? No wonder people keep saying I’m this and that for a fire fucker...’

Confident as I was in my abilities and fire resistance, I don’t think I could take on over a hundred Pyromaniacs on my own and quickly shot it down. ”Sorry to douse your wicks guys, but I have already been in a serious duel today and am still recovering, maybe another time?”

”AWWWW!” They yelled in unison before turning away from me and continuing their own conversations.

Lena then used me as gym equipment and spun around me with trivial ease before landing directly in front of me and smiling. ”Isn’t this place great! All us fire fuckers in one place? How awesome is that?”

I frowned hearing that and looked around confused. ”All? Why wasn’t I informed of this place?” I said, feeling slightly left out.

Lena then swatted my shoulders and spoke like it was obvious. ”Because you are a goody goody! The college apparently has some understanding that our nature can be a tiny bit volatile so they gave us one tiny little arson for free without punishment. After that, we get told about this place and then we are allowed to expel all our energy in here amongst the kindred. It’s quite cathartic. They don’t tell you right away as they don’t want to encourage a free arson and according to the teacher over there, they do it to see who has good control over their impulses.”

I nodded hearing the last part, I suppose that did make a good amount of sense, but I then realised what Lena said before and asked.”You committed arson?”

Lena then rolled her eyes at my question and explained. ”I was practicing with my whips and my roommate spooked me. I hit something flammable and I burnt my room down. No biggie. I have a new room all to myself now and the only thing I am not allowed to do is use my fire indoors anymore.”

I blinked rapidly, my brain shorting out at the way Spartari handle things. ’Everyone is just completely bonkers.’

My attention then turned to the ceiling again as individuals were still throwing flames up there. Lena, noticing my gaze smiled and explained. ”Thats just a way for us to turn our power into energy for the school. Steam is always in style. We get to exhaust ourselves, the school gets free power it’s all about the win-win.”

I continued to look up at the ceiling in contemplation. ”Huh.” I then brought my sight down to my hands and looked at them. Thinking about the torrents I have been seen heading up to the ceiling I decided I wanted to try. I was more fire ball and bullets, but a torrent shouldn’t be too complex. The only issue with a torrent is after a short distance, you lose control of the flame, but for a target so large? control wasn’t an issue as I didn’t need to aim.

As I smacked my hands together, Lena began smiling, her eyes going wide with delight, she was ecstatic at seeing the beautiful flames again. There was none better.

Pulling my hands apart, flames began dancing across my hands. Using my will over the flame I had them slowly begin to pull away from my hands and begin to rise ever so slowly. It was hard to keep the flame structured, it was too chaotic, but I tried my best to simply keep them rising above my hands.

My action had begun to cause a few Pyro’s nearby to begin looking over and murmuring, but I ignored them as I raised my hands into the air. Using my power in a new way, I had to close my eyes for a moment to visualise what I wanted to do.

I could have cheated, Have Sol tell me directly how to manipulate it perfectly, but that wouldn’t be growth.

I visualised my Psionics passing violently through the two floating flames above me with rapid speed, being ignited by these flames and carrying on upwards till their energy expelled and the flame dissipated.

I could visualise what I wanted with clarity which meant that it was feasible, doable, most definitely possible. I then opened my eyes and tensed as I began expelling Psionic energy out of my body, and through the flames.

The Psionics reacted violently to my intent as they gushed upwards, like I threw a pan of boiling oil into a sink full of water. My eyebrows raised in surprise as I did this, as it was actually quite trivial. There was little to no technique involved. I was just throwing fuel into a catalyst and the fuel was exploding.

Despite its simplicity, I also felt exhilarated. I felt like a human flamethrower. After about ten seconds I suddenly realised I was smiling quite widely and realised what Sol meant about how Pyrokinetic individuals could become lost in their flames. I was feeling nowhere near close to that, but just recognising the fact I could now understand how they could get lost freaked me out a little and I promptly stopped.

’Good my Kindled, good. Many of my past kindled hosts did not have the self restraint to understand this. They fell madly into this feeling. Becoming absorbed in the sensation until it was all they could think of. Your restraint, your foresight, your slow burn is why I love you so. You can take all of me, but know when to stop feeding me.’

My smile returned, but this time it was one fuelled by love. I observed the glass above for a few more seconds, not even a scorch mark from the torrent was left behind. I then returned my attention to eye level and I realised I had once more drawn a crowd.

Everyone was looking at me silently, their eyes blinking simply for a few moments before they all cheered simultaneously.

”Yeah!” ”That was awesome!” ”Such pure Fire!” ”Burn me!” ”Use your torrent on my tits!”

The majority that were capable after all the cheering then began releasing their own torrents again doing their best to out do one another. While none could reach my flame’s purity, I had the original babe powering me after all, others were equally impressive and much more destructive.

A few fights broke out between some of the hot heads and the boasting battles were quite the spectacle, but one thing I did notice about the ’fire fuckers’ was that they were all utterly, unequivocally delighted with every little bit of fire they were seeing and overall some of the happiest people I had ever met...

On top of the fact they were all absolutely wacko, but hey! Nobody is perfect.