Hal's jaw dropped as the bullet zipped past Diana, barely missing her. As if in slow motion, he followed its path as it flew over the desk and buried itself into Guardian's chest. The man gasped in sudden pain, his eyes going dim before any of the trio could even think to do anything.

Belatedly, Diana screamed in horror. Hal swung around to face the shooter, his arms lighting with flames without him even realizing it. At the same time, Brick pushed Diana behind him protectively. Nothing could have prepared them for who had shot Guardian, though.

Brain. The slow-typing, idle, persnickety secretary who always made them all wait, was now pointing a gun at them, and had murdered Art's friend. Diana was peeking over Brick's shoulder, her eyes wide, obviously frightened.

Hal took a step forward. "What the heck did you just do?" he burst out indignantly. "You just killed the leader of Haven!"

"I'm sure you're smart enough to realize that Guardian hasn't been the leader of Haven for some time," Brain answered, with a smile from his bloodless lips. "I have been controlling him ever since Eagle and Thorn went off in search of Delphi."

Diana was staring at him, her eyes wide. "You," she said, almost trancelike. "I should have realized—I should have known. It's you."

Brain smiled thinly again. "Ahh, I should have known," he said. "You recognize me, don't you? You saw the vision. Guardian and ... others ... were very interested in your story, of how you saw it before it actually happened. Very impressive, Delphi."

"Before what happened?" Hal burst out, staring at Diana. The girl's face was rapidly draining of color, and she seemed to be looking ... at Hal himself.

"I'm totally confused," Brick muttered. "What does this have to do with my sister?"

"Your sister attempted to free one of two people who knew that Guardian had changed," Brain said. "She had to be dealt with. It rather ruined my plans to have Eagle broken out of prison, but he shall be dealt with soon. I would be willing to bet that he would come to at least Silence's rescue, when she is taken to be executed. Ivy is simply ... collateral damage."

"Di, what did you see?" Hal said, trying to ignore Brain.

The girl looked over at him, her eyes wide. There was something in her expression that scared Hal. "Diana!" he said insistently.

"H-Hal, this is the man ..." Diana trailed off, her wide-eyed gaze switching to Brain again. "He ..." She choked off her words when Brain reached into his pocket and produced a remote.

Hal looked at the remote, and his eyebrows shot up. "Are you going to mute me or something?" There was genuine amusement in his voice.

"Hal, don't push him!" Diana cried. "Please!"

So ... the remote was something scary? Hal stared at her. "Di, what the heck is going on?" he cried at last in annoyance. "Why is the remote something bad?"

"He used it to make Solar explode!" Diana said. "And he's going to do the same thing to you!"

Hal looked at Brain. "That's impossible," he protested. "How could a weapon he used on Solar years ago work on me?"

Diana looked away, but it was Brain who laughed like a lunatic. "You still don't know?" he mocked him. "How can you not realize? How many people have told you that you're the most powerful super since Solar? There's a reason for that, Phoenix."

"So what is that reason?" Hal snapped back.

"Solar is your father," Brain replied.

Thousands of thoughts clashed in Hal's mind at that moment. The only one that actually came out was, "I already have a dad, and a mom too."

"Foster parents," Brain replied. "To make you believe you were normal. Solar was the oldest of three siblings. Your father, the middle son, and ... a girl. I'm sure you can guess the rest, can't you, Whittaker?"

Hal stared at Brain, remembering his father's cryptic words about Storm. "S-Storm is my aunt?" he choked out.

"At the time, she went by Marina Whittaker," Brain said, obviously enjoying the expression of disbelief on Hal's face. Once her brother Rick killed numerous people and destroyed the apartment building, she took on the name Storm instead. And later, when she married criminal Arthur Brendan, she became Storm Brendan."

Diana's face was white. "I had no idea," she stammered.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Brain said. "That you only find out before you share Solar's fate."

He pressed a button on the remote, and an uncomfortable feeling settled over Hal. When he looked down, he saw, to his horror, that he was covered in flames. Diana cried out in surprise and Brick swore, shoving her backwards. The look of fright on his friends' faces hurt him. "Guys!" he said. "It's okay!"

But it wasn't. He could feel himself getting hotter, the flames licking at him. Oddly enough, they almost felt like they were burning him, even though that was impossible. Brain was laughing, the controller in his hand, his thumb hovering over a button.

It was Diana who reacted the fastest. Her hand shot out, and the controller flew from Brain's hand, and into Diana's. She clutched it, gasping for breath in the excitement, the remote held to her chest. "Please, stop this," she said. "Which button undoes what you did to Hal?"

"That is for me to know," Brain said. "Beautiful, isn't it? Such uncontrollable power. And I have reason to believe that he, unlike Solar, would survive such an explosion. Those around him? Not so much. Ten minutes. Then we find out just how powerful Phoenix really is."

Hal backed up, not near enough to his friends to burn them, but close enough that he still felt like they were on his side. Diana was still clutching that remote, but she looked as if she hardly dared to touch any buttons on it for fear of setting Hal off like a bomb. "You need to stop this," Hal said, his voice shaking in a way he hated.

"Why? This is much more entertaining. And it helps me to gauge the boy's power," Brain said, evidently pleased with himself. He stepped back, still threatening them with his gun, into the elevator. "If he dies, he's useless to me. But if he lives ... what a tool he would be for me!"

Brick charged forward in anger, slamming into the elevator doors just as they closed fully. In both frustration and fury, the boy banged his fists against them, making fist-sized dents in the metal, but failing to pierce it. "No!" Brick yelled. "I'll kill that monster!"

"Not if we don't make it out of here," Diana said philosophically. "Hal, hang on, okay? Don't let go."

Hal swallowed anxiously, feeling the temperature around him going up. The carpet was smoldering under his feet, and try as he might, he couldn't stop the flames from spreading all over him. "Hurry, Di," he pleaded anxiously, coughing on the smoke from his fire.

The girl hardly spared him a glance. She was examining the remote, distressed. "Even if we got you out, I don't think I can figure out how to stop you from exploding!" she cried, desperation tinging at the edges of her voice. "I ... I don't know what to do!"

Hal looked around, finding a paperweight on Guardian's desk. Ignoring the man's corpse, he grabbed the weight and hurled it at the window, shattering the glass. "Di," he said. "Pull the fire alarm."

His friend was obviously puzzled, but she did as she was told and pulled on the fire alarm in the wall. Immediately, ear-splitting ringing started going off. Brick covered his ears with his hands. "What's the plan?" he yelled.

"Everyone's going to get out of the building with the alarm!" Hal shouted back. "Diana, you need to use your telekinesis to levitate Guardian's desk down to the ground, with you and Brick on it!"

"But what about you?" Diana cried back.

"I'll be fine! You said it, not me," Hal told her. "I'm going to explode no matter what. And if I die, I die. But I'm sure as heck not taking either of you with me! Now go! And if I don't make it out ..."

"Please don't say that," Diana begged.

"I have to," Hal insisted. "If I don't make it out, save Silence and Ivy, meet up with Art and Storm, and get out of here. And ... tell Storm that ... that I don't have any hard feelings towards her for what she kept from me."

Diana froze, staring hard at him. Then she did something that took him by surprise. She walked up to him, and for a moment, he thought she was going to punch him. However, she didn't; instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, on the lips. Before he even had a chance to reciprocate, the girl stepped back. "Do not die," she told him.

Hal was grateful that she didn't appear to have been burned by his flames. Her powers must have waved the fire aside long enough for her to kiss him. However, his face was now a deep crimson, and not just because of the rising temperature around him. He gave a really intellectual response that came out like, "Uh ... yeah."

Diana gave him a smile through her teary eyes. "Goodbye, Hal."

Hal watched, unable to speak around the lump in his throat, as Brick and Diana clambered onto the desk. Brick looked uncommonly anxious; he glanced back at Hal. "Don't die, buddy."

"I'll do my best," Hal managed, and watched as Diana, with a frown of effort, levitated the desk out the window and dropped them down.

He went to the window and looked down. They'd made it to the bottom unharmed, though Brick was prying his hands off the sides of the now-bent desk. Crowds of people were hurrying out of the building, and firetrucks were beginning to circle the tower.

Hal touched his forehead to the glass. Of course, he had to stop when he realized he was melting it, and stepped back. How long had Brain told him he'd had? Things were beginning to get fuzzy. The carpet was on fire, licking its way around the room. He wanted to move Guardian's body, but where could he put it? If he touched it, it would burn.

Hal just sat down and waited to explode.

. . . . . . . . . .

A group of policemen were trying to surround Diana and Brick, to question them about what had happened, but Art and Storm got there first. Storm's vines dragged the duo through the crowd to the couple's side. "What's going on?" Storm demanded. "Where's Hal?"

"It's Brain!" Diana cried, hysterical. "He shot Guardian, he set Hal to explode ... he's going to blow up!"

"Brain?" Art said. "I knew he was evil. Anybody who types that slowly is."

"Focus, Eagle!" Storm snapped. "Is Guardian still alive?"

"N-no," Diana said, shaking her head. "He died. Brain was controlling him, he has been since you two came to get me ... Ivy was the only one that knew, but she just thought that Guardian was evil from the very beginning."

Art's face went white when he heard that Guardian was dead. True to form, Storm was more concerned by the fact that Hal was going to explode. "How did Brain make it so Hal is going to explode?"

Brick looked at her, with an expression that could only have been described as knowing. "Because he's Solar's son."

"Whoa, wait, what?" Art said, turning to his wife. "What the ... Brick, did you hit your head or something?"

Diana shook her head. "No, Art. He's right. Hal is Solar's son. His uncle 'adopted' him after Solar died. He also said ..."

"He also said what?" Art pressed the girl when she hesitated.

Storm put her hand on his arm. "Easy, Arthur. There's no need to interrogate her. He probably told them my true name. Marina Whittaker. Right?"

"He said you were Hal's aunt," Brick admitted.

"Which I am," Storm said. "But there's no time to consider that now. We need to get Hal out of there ..."

Diana handed the remote over to Art. "Can you figure out how to stop it?" she asked timidly.

"I don't know," Art said, frowning. "Not without knowing which button started him to explode ..."

"Well, think of something!" Storm insisted.

Time was ticking as Art examined the controller ...

. . . . . . . . . .

It hurt. It hurt like mad. Hal's body ached, and red skin made him look kind of like he'd been out in the sun too long. Solar ... how ironic. He supposed he should've known, that everyone had been telling him he was just as powerful as Solar, and it turned out that Solar was his father. He wished that Storm had told him the truth.

Then again, would he have had the strength? After all, Storm probably thought that Solar exploded without reason. She couldn't have known about the remote that Brain had used to set him off. What aunt would want to tell her nephew that his real father was a terrorist? He couldn't really blame her for keeping it from him.

Maybe Diana and Brick would be able to give her some closure now, by telling her that Solar had actually been murdered—and not been the murderer everyone thought he was. Or maybe it would just make her desperate for revenge. Hal simply didn't know her well enough to figure that out.

He was glad Diana and Brick had gotten away; not least because Diana had given him that parting kiss. Oddly enough, it had been his very first. And, judging from how painful his flaming body now felt, it would probably be his last. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing it would just hurry up and get it over with. This was worse than waiting the last five minutes until Geometry class was over.

Police were forcing the spectators away from the building. That was good. Hal didn't want them to get caught up in the explosion. The last thing he needed was more deaths on his conscience. Hopefully, they'd be far enough away. He didn't know how big the explosion would end up being.

The uncomfortable feeling built in his chest, feeling like it was forcing its way up his throat. He doubled over, coughing, but no air would escape his lungs. It felt as if it were building itself up, waiting to escape. The flames lessened, tightening around him. The temperature around him went way up. As if from a distance, he smelled the foul scent of burning flesh from Guardian's body. He felt bad about that.

Then his breath escaped in a scream of sheer agony as flames exploded outwards from around him in a massive explosion.