"I have heard enough. Shut him away." Frager searched his mind for reasons to keep the Shifting Man useful. "Harold, take me back to the first asset. I am curious to see exactly what I am dealing with." Frager turned and walked ominously away as the containment unit was safely stored.

        A thunderous bang rang out from the unit and the ground shook. Frager suddenly felt a slight attraction to the unit as the ground trembled. "YOU CAN'T KEEP ME CONTAINED, FRAGER! I WILL FIGHT IN YOUR WAR, BUT I WILL NEVER OWE YOU ANYTHING. I WILL DEFEAT, AND THEN...and then, I will never know defeat again. I will break free of your hold and be who I am meant to be again."

        "He's beginning to be too problematic, Harold." Frager stated. He reached out and pressed a button on the nearby panel. "When the gas has finished running its course, wipe him." He began his walk back down to the first unit made of a large stone containing an ever decreasing temperature inside.

        The dark room held no memories, the longer he sat here the more pain he was in. It was like he was being stabbed from every angle of his inner being. It was a pain that could not destroy. It was stinging his every cell; his every nerve and his very thoughts were consumed with the pain.

        He shifted his position. As he moved His entire body exploded with pain accompanied by the sound of crunching and scraping like shattered glass rubbing together. His limbs felt heavy and stiff. He let out a breath that sounded like mist. His lungs burned when he breathed back in.

        A rumble shifted the area, loud and tremendous. There was fear flooding through his bones as the sound shook wherever he was at. It was like thunder on metal, sharp like lightning.

        There, for an instant, in reaction to the sound, there was relief. All the pain had subsided for an instant. For an instant, nothing could steal his peace. His muscles and limbs were no longer heavy, and his movements no longer yielded the sound of crystalline noise. For the smallest instant that was less than a fraction of a second, his peace felt like an eternity.

        As the fraction of an instant ended, the pain exploded back again. His muscles burned once more. Yet, this pain was different, rather, it felt lighter, more energized and almost like electricity. His lungs didn't feel like they were scraping together, rather like they were falling apart as pressure built up within them. The feeling was the complete opposite type of excruciating pain. His entire body felt light and brittle, as if his very being was thrown into a furnace.

        Within that same instant, there was a light, ominous in its glow. It illuminated the walls and the floor. It was low and slow burning and showed that the walls were indeed made of a gray stone. They were smooth and seemed to be of some absorbent rock. The pressure in his lungs continued to build up. He looked up for an exit, maybe in the ceiling for all he hoped. He had made an extreme mistake. More pain Exploded as he moved his lighter muscles. It felt as if he was burning like the sun. Through the pain he noticed that the ceiling of the small space was sealed with no gaps from the wall. Every movement he made, from his eyes to his very turning around, burned like fire. His lungs continued to build up pressure.

        The light grew more intense as his pain exploded with every movement. As the pain grew, so did the light. What is going on? What is with all this agony? I can hardly think, I can hardly see, I can hardly even breathe. He let out the air he was holding in his lungs. It burst out of his mouth like steam from an engine. He breathed back in to realize that the air entering his lungs felt like fire. He breathed out aggressively to a horrible realization.

        The light was flickering, moving and waving. No. It was like it was alive with him. He painstakingly moved his agonized hand. No No No. The light grew more intense in the direction of his hand's movements. Except, his hand was bright, very bright. The light was orange and alive with his movements. His hand was the light. NO!

        The light was from fire. He was on fire. His agony was of him burning alive. He was the light.

        This can't be possible. 

        The flames grew more intense in an outburst of fear and terror, blind with pain. His voice was no more as it too burned in his throat. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!" His outburst was complemented by the explosion of intense flames.

        Zion continued as he was in his wooden confinement. He deeply considered what he just remembered, how it deeply disturbed him and filled him with fear. Those eyes haunted him, lurking like a faraway ghost in the dark. The collapsing buildings, the surrounding men, the shaking air, the gunshot—

        BOOM!!

        Like a thunderous timpani the sound shook his confinement like a quiet rumbling. There was silence. It all sounded so familiar, like the falling of buildings inexplicably in his wake. The hole left in the wall as he ran through it. All to escape those prying eyes. Eyes that can hurtle him through buildings with one look. It reminded him of the sound it made when it ran after him.

        SKKKKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

        A sound like a scream made of fire filled the air. It rang for moments that felt like sickening hours. The sound was burning, as if the scream itself was lit aflame. Zion realized that his area was heating up. The water in the tree was boiling steam that made his cage feel like a sauna. He started to shake with fear. The tree itself shook with hearty contempt. What is goin on? WHAT IS THAT? This noise. This heat. It all has to be coming from the same place. But where? I can't hear anything else besides this terrible noise!

        Frager stood still as the ground shook more than an earthquake could muster. The quaking was a mere show. He could not be knocked down. The area around cracked as it separated, unwilling to move with the shaking. Finally, the shaking stopped. Frager stepped off the small spot created that refused to move. "Harold!" He shouted. "Come fix this mess I just had to step off of." Frager walked steadily towards his original destination, desiring nothing more than to make Harold give him more information on the being in the rock. As he got closer, he noticed something different, strange and out of order.

        Sweat began to drip down his forehead to the bridge of his nose. All around him, things began to display signs of disorder from extreme heat. The thermostat connected to a nearby pillar showed the room as normal temperature, yet the room continued to heat up constantly. It was getting overwhelming momentarily.

        Frager looked back at the stone. Its monitor in front began to indicate that the temperature inside was heating up. There was also a flickering movement on the inside right on top of the being trapped in it.

         "Harold!"

        Shortly after hearing his name, Harold appeared next to Frager. He seemed unsurprised by the onslaught of heat nor by the change in the monitor. Instead, Harold seemed to be highly intrigued as his hefty figure leaned over and got closer to the monitor. "Interesting..." He trailed off.

        Frager stepped up closer to the monitor and realized the flickering was moving like fire. "Frager," Harold began. The being inside quickly and slightly moved. "Look how fascinating this is!" The entity inside the stone lifted its hand. Its posture held uncertainty. "When we captured him, He managed to get hot, but not nearly this hot. It's so–"

        SKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

        In an immediate interrupting turn of events, Harold's words were interrupted as an explosion of heat followed a monstrous sound of a burning cry. It was more than a cry, it was a roar, lit aflame by the very being creating all the heat in the rock.

        The stone glowed red as it burned inside with an unbearable flame more intense than fire itself. The cry lasted for agonizing moments and didn't end.

        "Harold!" Frager yelled out in an attempt to get his subordinate's attention. Luckily, Harold seemed to notice and understand.

        Together they moved to the tree, in the chaos Frager did not notice what was wrong with the dry immoveable unit of wood. While it was still loud even from the great distance away, they could better hear and understand each other.

        "Harold, what is happening?"

        "Truthfully, I do not fully comprehend the issue at hand. Such an explosion of heat and power is beyond comprehension. Imagine, a child able to create heats and cold at a rate so incredible it has no upper or lower limit. What wonderful impossibilities!"

        "Harold, while I am glad that you are so enthusiastic about this predicament, I do think that something should be done about the ever rising heat before the entire Foundation gets burned down." Frager felt a flash of his consciousness fall out and he nearly fell over. As he stumbled, he reached out to put his weight on the tree.

        "Stop!" Harold yelled out. His urgent yell cut through the constant flaming fcry emitting from the stone that continued to pour out intense heat from so far away.

        "What?" Frager inquired with deep frustration.

        "In order to capture and hold this asset, we had to contain him in the least vibrateable thing possible. That being wood, wet wood. And with such an intense heat, the wood would have surely dried to a near brittle state." Harold paused in order to catch his breath in the overheated room. "The being that could pull down buildings resides in that wood, and he's bound to be scared and defensive in this situation."

        "What are you talking about?" Frager was barely able to keep up his thought process in such an environment, but when Harold pointed to the tree, he turned around and suddenly realized just how dangerous this boy in the tree really was. He saw just how much of a monster he could be. He saw just how close he came to being pulled apart atom by atom.

        Violently, the tree was not shaking, but vibrating beyond any possible belief.