;Set this place on fire*let the flames rise higher;

There is a smell.

A delicious smell, a wafting sort of smell.

Scott Fitzgerald is making pancakes, the essence of the shortpost breakfast.

Are you curious about where Scott comes from? the story itself? Well I actually got around to setting a good chunk of that down in stone today (and more tomorrow! forthcoming!) You can now visit antimatter_blog where you can read all about Hope City (I was going to have it be LA, but somehow having LA being the end of the world was just a bit cliche, Scott's family history (along with the rest of their history) and all that other good stuff? It can all be found there.

I encourage people to comment leaving critiques and criticism. And as soon as my thumbdrive's up, you guys can read chapter one and two!

Because dammit, if I can't get up the balls to publish this offically then I can publish it on livejournal! :D!!

People talk about going through the motions whenever something bad happens. They detach and become automatons of their former selves if things get too hard to deal with or understand. It's a defense mechanism.

When Scott wakes up everything hits him all at once. His life, the lives of the people around him, the way humanity was going.

His hands are wooden as he goes through the motions. Helmet, Jacket, Belt, Shoes. A mix and match picture puzzle with a mind of it's own but only a vague sense of the direction that he needs to go in.

It hit home. It always hit home because it was cutting to the quick and he lost people who he was bound to by blood and fire. The defining moment of a generation..

He wanted to pity the children who'd never know safety and security because of the events his generation and the ones before set in motion. He wanted to apologize to the boys and girls waving on the sidewalk, clutching their lunchboxes. He wanted to grab the hands of the young men and women marching off to die and tell them no, don't go. It's our fault and I'm sorry.

To be a hero is to take the responsibility of the world on your shoulders in a moment when you have no idea that you're doing it..

The day is relatively quiet up until 3:30, 4:00 when there's a call. A woman and her son are trapped in a flipped over car. There's gas. It could be dangerous.

His men are all business. It's payment. They're doing the jobs that firemen have done and in doing so praising their maker and their brothers in arms for their sacrifices. Do not weep and spend time in memorials but make your work a prayer to the dead and the dying. You fell in the line of duty I will pick up the line after you and walk into the fire..

The boy is out by the side of the road with red tears running down his cheeks from a gash in his forehead, "...My mom. Save my mom."

And damn his situation, damn the reality of the world. Damn common sense, Scott Fitzgerald is there on his belly crawling over broken glass, "Ma'am, can you hear me?"

She moans. There are real tears on her cheeks, "My baby."
Her baby is being loaded into an ambulance apologizing for doing nothing wrong.
"...Please. Where-where is my baby?" Her voice rose an octave, "He was right next to me."
"He's fine." Scott shifts his weight, "You've had an accident."

Reality rears it's ugly head and she looks down at her body in horror, "I can't...I can't move."
"Can you move your legs for me? Your arms?" He's about to pull out and grab the jaws when the woman wiggles her feet very clearly, "My seatbelt is caught-"

She starts to panic, "My seatbelt. I smell gas, get me out of here, get me out of here, get me-"
"It's all right ma'am." Scott struggled to keep himself calm, "I need you to breath with me okay?"
"I smell gas! I smell it!" She started to cry, "I don't want to die Mr. Please don't let me die..."

"You're not going to die." Scott began to inch forward, "I'm here."

Inches from her seatbelt he spots the problem and unties the knot. She's whimpering, murmuring to herself, "Don't let me die."
"I'm not." he started to pull back and she screamed, grabbing for him, "...Easy. easy."
He's not sure who he's talking to now.
The smell is burning his nostrils. Any minute now he's going to start a fire and the whole thing will go up with him inside it.

"I'm not going to let you die."
"I'm scared." Her voice is small. Not the voice of a mother of a teenage son but the voice of the girl she stopped being a long time ago, "I don't want to die."

"You're not going to." The gas smell is getting stronger, "And I'm scared too."

She looked at him incredulous before falling into his arms and clutching at him as crawled together out of the twisted heap of steel and ash.
-----

"You were scared?"
The woman's being loaded into an ambulance staring at him.

Scott has a blanket around his shoulders. He's rubbing his hands, trying to stop from shaking, "I'd have to be a fool not to be."

She stares at him for a long time as the ambulance starts up, "Why'd you do it?"

"....Because it's my job." It was so much more then that. It was a calling and a life's persuit and an homage to those who'd gone before and who would come after, "Because you were in danger."

Her eyes follow him as the ambulance closes it's doors and down the road where they stop before making the turn to the hospital. And he turns, breathing deep, before heading back to his crew.

"From the ashes take shape gods among men who stand on the threshold between life and death and act as the shield to the realms of men. They are larger then life and history shall call them by another name...Heroes
-Marvel Comics, 9/11 booklet.

there is a post Here in my personal journal of great importance.

I know this is new, and I know I haven't put up the finished product, but-well, take a look and I think we've got a real shot at this.

What makes someone a hero? What makes someone a villain?


...I think I hate you.
Either you or the person who thinks up these questions. I'm not entirely decided yet.

Emerson defines heroism as "something that thinks and never reasons and is therefore always right." After some time I realized that I wasn't very happy with that definition. I'm considered a hero and I think and reason with the best of them.

Being a hero...Is willing to give yourself up for the greater good. The moments that I've done the best for my fellow man have been where I've thrown caution to the wind.

But why can't a hero reason? Why can't a hero consider all the options before making a decision? Are we in the habit of rewarding the reckless? Take...my ability for example. There were people robbing a bank and I...well...I reacted.

The problem being that because I reacted without thinking the bank nearly burned down. Several people suffered third degree burns because of me. Being a hero means you have to think, so why do we honor the reckless ones when sometimes everything they do and we do is just wrong?

I don't believe in villany either. At least not that cloak and dagger large mustache bullshit. There is no good or evil. There's only differing perspectives on various acts. The best laid plans, mice and men, road to hell and all of that.

There's a quote for you. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I can really believe that.

I didn't want to hurt those people.
But I reacted, which is something a hero is supposed to do. I didn't think, which is something a hero isn't supposed to do. The thinking I mean.

I think...I think I'll close with saying hero and villan are just definitions. If you start assigning labels to things then you get people who want to be heroes and who end up being villans. We're all just people.
I have to believe that.
I really have to, because if I don't I think I'll go nuts.

Original Character
Fandom: AntiMatter-Original Concept
wordcount: 450

Now it seems to me, some fine things have been laid upon your table, but you only want the ones that you can't get… (from ‘Desperado’ by The Eagles


"There's someone else."
And it comes as a complete and utter shock despite the fact that he was partially expecting it. Someone else. Someone else.

He can barely talk and all the restaurant is looking at him funny. Not at her, at him. she's a celebrity, she matters.

He's just her date. He was always just her date.

"...Ted."
"Ted." Scott digests this, "Ted the weatherman Ted?"
"...Yes..." Maria's voice is slow, "He's really sweet, alot like you but-"

"Ted with plastic seventies hair Ted?" He can't get off of this. The man wears a toupe that looks like it was made out of rubber.

And she keeps talking and all he can think of is how she left him for a goddamn barbie doll with plastic hair.
-----------

"Now you want to be a father?"
"I could be asking you the same damn question!" The idea is laughable. Unthinkable. She's his child, and the fact that they want Cynthia to be taken away-

"The custody agreement can be renegotiated after two years. That's what the judge said-"

"Do you know her?" Scott still can't get off this topic, he doesn't want to, "Do you know her favorite bedtime story? Her favorite ice cream flavor? the names of all her dolls?"

"No, but I want a chance to learn, which is more then you ever gave me!"

"You never wanted it!" HE could pick up that stupid china dalmation dog and throw it at her. His hands clench. He wants her dead, lying on the floor, lying bitch, lying evil bitch...

"Do you know she cries when you leave?" Maria's voice is blank, "Every time you go out to fight the beast she cries little tears into her pillow. I may not have been a mother, but at least I never made her cry."
-------------

The first night he drowns himself in liquor. There's a call and he's not there, he's passed out in the firehouse with a bottle of whiskey and his pillow wet with tears.

---------

He never forgets. There are always cards. She's ten now. He's been out of her life for three years and she's never written him back. It doesn't matter. He'll go on sending her a hundred dollars out of his paycheck for the rest of his life if he has to.
He keeps telling himself that. It doesn't matter that she doesn't call or write. She's happy. That's what's important. That's what parents want.

They live in a big house on Wilshire and he tells himself that this will be the last time every time he drives up to see her. He never gets out of the car, just watches her laugh and play. He is a parent. He's content that his child is happy.
He keeps telling himself that.

But every time he turns his car around just before the maid rushes out to tell him to drive off (this is NOT the interstate) he has to wipe his eyes with his hand and tell himself it's the heat as he heads back into the city.

And he had no where to put them.

"...Tell it to me again." Scott said, "Slowly. Carefully. I want to make sure I understand everything that happened so I can tell it to every single relative of yours that I can find."

Sloane was a weasly little man with an absurd mustache on his upper lip. He coughed into his hand and started again, squeezing the blanket tightly around his shoulders.

The story went like a bad comedy. They'd been having a prayer meeting and someone sneezed, but the sneeze had jolted old Mrs. Heatherspoon out of her holy revere and knocked her backwards into old Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts thought that gregory, the young up and coming fellow was trying to start a row, so he pushed him, then Gregory started pushing back.

The fact that they were at a picnic made no matter. The city park became too small for everyone. The birthday party was invaded by a group of the very same angry religious extremists who thought that Rosemary Luchada needed to be saved. When her father tried to assure him that they were saved and loyal members of the catholic church things had gotten out of hand.

The final tally was two broken arms, three cracked ribs, a girl with a skull fracture (He couldn't look at those goddamn religious nuts without wanting to plaster their smug leader across the face) and twenty naked pentecostals.

He had to hand it to Rosemary's Abuleta. When her son and the picnic invader had started going at it she simply picked up the now cold carne asada soup and flung it at them.

The minster too, although he disagreed with the man's solutions. The idea of punishment was all well and good for something so stupid and ridiculous, but really...

"It's our penance." He said cheerfully, "The lord says that those who do harm unto others should be punished. And we did ruin our good church clothes."
"I can give you clothes." He'd send Carter and Sloane who were the first on scene to do it, "I'll buy your whole damn group clothing. It's a disorderly conduct issue.." He did his best to move them away from the TV crews gathering in the left corner of the park looking for a story, "Please you're all my responsibility."

"Don't damn those you don't understand son, you may need the lord someday." The minister was cheerful, "And he's got his eye on you." The minister wagged a finger at him and smiled, "...He gave us bodies so that we might be as Adam and Eve were in the Garden. Innocent."

Scott was aghast, "...But why-why-why are you naked? You didn't get dirty!"


"...My son, a shepard must lead his flock." He stood up straighter, "...C'mon gang, first one in the pontiac gets to pick the hymn!"

There was a choir of cheers and shouts as the twenty naked pentecostals of varying ages piled into the ministers pontiac leaving a frightened birthday party and a group of very confused firefighters in their wake.

And I saw six beasts and on their heads were written the vile words of the unbelievers in truth.

The prophecy is Indian in nature (from his particular world) coming from a Native American Shaman and spoken to Col. Eric Robertson in 1833. Believed to be one of the newest fortellings of the end of the world (Far newer then the book of revelations) Col. Robertson dismissed it as fancy and recorded it in his diary for his ancestor, one Amnesty Harper to find.

It goes a little something like this.

And walking with the evil there were six beasts, and I saw six beasts and on their heads were written vile words of the unbelievers. They shall burn away the old gods of the earth and trees and set discord among the mother's children. Those who remain shall have no choice but to obey their rule, and in their wake there shall be only silence watched over by a woman who's horse is pale and red.

And an arrow shall fall from the heavens and you shall know my messengers by the signs they do. I am Yathe, the Omega, the end of mankind, and in the wake of my harbringers all that you know is at an end..

Now see, ordinarily people would take that with a grain of salt like the smucky bunk that it is yes? Except for the fact that right after the pleaoside meteor shower...Scott started having bad dreams. And after the dreams came the flames.

He and Regina Sanchez (Death) Leonard Starkley (Obedience) Kate Voss (Discord) Kyle Carter (Silence) are supposedly going to end the world.

There is a sixth, Eleanor, who has the ability to hear death's approach, but without giving too much of the story away let's say she's not a Harbringer but somethin completely different.

Abilities
Scott starts fires. There's no other way to explain it. He has very little contro lover it, they start when he's angry or upset, but it takes intense effort to produce actual flame. HE also fans initial fires, simply by his presence.

This has made his position...obsolete and made him the target of a criminal investigation concerning several attempted "arson" acts. He's still a captain, but it's...a tenuous hold at best."

His wife wanted to name the dogs Scotty and Barnie. He'd refused on principal saying that dignified creatures needed dignified names. Pongo and Perdita fit fine, but then of course Cynthia had to burst out with "Daddy! Those aren't 'ignified! They're 'isney!"

She couldn't say D's and he'd practically died when she said it. Dalmations from Disney named Pongo and Perdita. He'd completely forgotten the story.

They were puppies way back when. Wonderful wiggly puppies that had made it a point to crawl into his bedroom in the middle of the night. There was never any question that they were his dogs. He fed them, loved them, took care of them.

And now they repayed him by staring at him as if he were a monster or some strange sort of cat man. They refused to go near him, and every time he'd approached they only offered growls in response.

It was because of the cat. That damn cat had spooked him. One minute the creature had been there sauntering along the window with that half-sway walk that felines with too much to not fear in the world had. One minute that cat had been alive and smiling it's stupid chesire cat smile in his direction.

The next minute it had burst into flames. Screaming. Completely incinerated. He'd been so surprised that he'd dropped his own meal, spilling Jack in the Box across the floor.
---------

With everything that had been going on he'd negelected them, these dogs of his, these loyal friends. They loved him for the loyal early years when his life was half normal. When they had a little girl to romp around in the backyard with.

It wasn't just the cat. His life had become forefit long before he'd learned of his supposed 'destiny'. They'd watched him deterorate from a man with a mission and a purpose in life into a half-seeming alcoholic who suddenly could start fires with his mind. It was twisted, worthy of Steven King.

For a moment he allowed himself to hate them. Hate them because they'd deserted him, sitting across the floor and staring at him with their beady little eyes. He had given them all he could and they repayed him with mistrust in his hour of darkness. In a man's hour of need a dog was supposed to be faithful. Loyal. Above reproach.

Instead they sat curved like two sphinx, watching him, refusing to let him move out of his chair.

He moved, (finally) and padded to the kitchen where he served them dinner and realized as the last of the kibble fell into the bowl that he was out of dogfood. The enormity of the mistakes he'd made hit him like a slap in the face and it took a minute to put out the small fire that had erupted on the kitchen towel.

He set the burned towel aside and realized it was one that Marie had given him, two dalmations cavorting on the terrycloth.

He dried his eyes and went to grab his keys, fully intending to make for the store.

He was out of dogfood after all.

muse: Scott Fitzgerald
Fandom: Original Character
Wordcount: 500.

[Tents fingers over the bridge of his nose]

In twenty years? I honestly could not tell you.

What, you want more then that? Fine. At one point I knew. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I would be the first person in my stellar career family to make fire chief. I'd sit on councils with the mayor, I'd be important. I'd make decisions and address the press and organize fundraisers. My wife and I would wear diamonds to balls and have our voices be heard in all the city decisions.

Then it all went to shit when Marie said I loved my job more then her and took the kids. I turned into another sad-sack civil servant drowning my woes in a bottle in favor of disconnecting with reality. All my dreams of making a name for myself and truly doing good went out the window like smoke.

Now? I don't want to know. I don't want to make any long range plans. Becuase if I do that means that I said yes and I became my destiny. I became a true harbringer. In twenty years I'd say? I see the world dead and my mission fufilled.

I don't want that.
Hence why I don't want to know, and why I basically refuse to.

Muse: Captain Scott Fitzgerald
Fandom: Original Character
Wordcount:412

I could just as easily give a one-line response to this.
Every time I look at nature I see a potential firehazard. It's not just my job, it's the fact that as a kid I loved, repeat, loved Smokey the Bear. There was something strangely cuddly about that visage, all smiling with his axe and his forest ranger's hat. Do you know how many potential fires are prevented thanks to that damn bear? Do you want me to get out the statistics?

No? C'mon, who doesn't love Smokey?

I used to teach (ages ago) a fire prevention class for campers. I'd meet up with a group of boyscouts (or girlscouts depending. Hey, I'm a PC kinda guy) Take them out into the woods with their teacher, and show them the proper way to take care of campfires. We inundate kids with that kind of shit, Forests are to be protected. Leave nothing but footprints take nothing but pictures.

Now...Looking at this I see what there is to save. To preserve. We came from forests. (Maybe they didn't look like that, but. forests. It's central to who we are) And ever since we've been monkeys swingin' shit out of the fucking trees, forests are a part of us, either as something we fear, or something we treasure.

I choose to see the good things about being a person in forests and trees. Sure it's a fire hazard, but that just means we have to be more careful around it. Mother nature will fuck you over before you can even think.

But she's a part of us. A part of who we are. And that...That means quite a bit to me. It's a living reminder of what I have to keep fighting for. Something to protect, not something to destroy.

Muse: Captain Scott Fitzgerald
Fandom: Original Character/ "AntiMatter"
Wordcount: 280

There is a dream that I've been having ever since this whole thing started. It's...it's pretty disconcerting to tell you the truth. Everytime I wake up I feel like my head's in a fog. It's like clockwork.

I'm standing on this hill next to a burning house in a suburban neighborhood. There's a truck, but no crew, a hose spraying water with no one to man it, and I'm shouting for someone to help me put the damn thing out and nobody's there.

Pretty fucking weird right?

So I charge in. I storm the place. Straight out of fucking backdraft.

And That's where everyone is. Carter is dancing with this redhead and there are kids playing on the rug and this old man and woman who I somehow recognize but don't drinking tea in one corner. The place is filled.

A few people start to drop. Smoke inhilation and such. I scream "WE'VE GOT TO GO" at the top of my lungs, but nobody listens. Finally I grab Carter's arm and tell him it's not safe and he says in this dead voice, the creepiest voice I have ever fucking heard, "...But you brought us here."

That's when I wake up. Ever since this whole thing started. It's damn frightening to tell you the truth.

Anyway, I guess I should take it literally right? Like, I'm going to be the one to fall into my destiny headfirst? No. I don't think so.

10. Scott is deathly, deathly allergic to shellfish, going so far as to jokingly say "If i can really create fire that large I'll start by roasting the ocean."

Thankfully he can't create fire that large.

9. Scott's son Christopher was arrested in two drug charges. His father refused to bail him out on the second charge, and since then Chris hasn't spoken to his father. This marks....two years now.

8. Scott's totem animal (If it could be called that) is the dalmation. He's nuts about dalmations, going so far as to have dalmation ovenmitts (a gift from his guys at the engine company) and a toy dalmation his daughter gave him for his birthday. It sits on his desk and barks at people.

7. Scott is probably the least likely to go villanous but he does have it in him. He doesn't hesitate to use his abilities, regardless of the extinuating circumstances.