“Sorcerer/7 and Avatar/10. My, my, my. You were busy. What spurred the latter?” I asked, tapping my cheek as I looked him over.

“I was bathing in the sun, in a million degrees of heat. I was... just a little firefly in the night, so small. It was grow, or burn out...”

He held up his hand, and fires rose on his fingers.

Simmering, concentrated, and the burning fingers and flames held much, much more white than they’d had before.

“Ho, you touched plasma, cosmic fire, on a standing basis, instead of at Nova. That’s quite nice to see. Did you get your Fire Reserve to /4?” I asked keenly.

He nodded quickly. “Fire and Light,” he confirmed quickly. I’d given him a list of things to work on magically while he advanced his powers out there floating in space. Weirding some Metas and spells had been at the top of the lists.

More to the point, having NON-Fire powers to draw on was also important. He had two spells per level guaranteed to be Fire. I’d directed him to work on universal spells or one spell per Level of other Elements, creating an internal Elemental Cycle that would do nothing but boost his Spell Power and Spell Potency, and bring greater harmony with the others of the FF.

“Go stow your stuff and meet me and Ben up on the top deck. I’ll fill you both in on what’s going on with Reed and Sue, and we’ll test a few things out together.”

His question predicted, he just nodded, looking around. “It’s good to be back, Dyna, but, you know... I felt I could have learned a whole lot more if I stayed out there.”

“It’s like I told you, Johnny. Magic is as deep and vast a sphere of knowledge as science. Start combining the two, and you can spend the rest of your life just researching the mysteries of Fire.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t understand that, until I looked into the sun for two months... and I was so small that it was looking right past me in return.”

I had to smile. “Make Twenty. It can’t fail to see you then. Also... it’s a star, the biggest kind of fire spirit. Of course you’re an ant to it!” I laughed as I glided away, and he shook his head, rather subdued.

I had no doubts he’d light right back up without too much of a push.

------

“Lay out your spell list for Johnny, Ben. Johnny, do the same.”

Both men nodded, not even bickering as I stood there watching them. The lists of spells, divided by Valence, popped up between them.

There was coordination between them because there had to be. They had only a limited number of spells they could learn, because they were both Elemental Sorcerers.

That said, both needed some generalist stuff.

Valence I was the only tier they had a full Elemental Cycle in. Both had Fly at III, which meant Johnny would be able to fly without being in fire-form, and Ben could fly or walk on air. Natural Elemental Air spells.

“The key thing for now is how you harmonize. Circulate power through your Valence I’s while holding hands. Go.” Well, they refused to hold hands, and goofed around figuring out how to go about it. “Shake hands!” I ordered them crossly, and they jumped and shook hands.

There was a crunch and a crackle as both of them shifted into their Elemental forms. There was a little bit of a difference, however.

Dark patches spread from where they were holding onto one another along Johnny, quickly covering his white flames in what looked like hardened black magma, the white heat of his flames simmering between them.

Likewise, there were flames burning in the cracks of Ben’s Rock form.

“Whoa!” they both exclaimed, and released their grips automatically. The changes didn’t go away.

I walked up as they were staring at themselves and waving their arms around. “Quit being children,” I chided them, pushing their arms down. “Ben, wave one arm around.”

He obliged, whipping it back and forth, trailing faint flames as they were fanned by the wind. I put a hand on his shoulder, but my skin didn’t even redden.

“You’re not radiating anything of note, maybe like a hot rock,” I told him. “Smack me once.” I braced for it as he nodded, and he slammed his big orange burning fist into my hands. Johnny yelped, because I wasn’t even in Wrecker mode, but I caught the fist anyway.

“You released heat on impact.” He pulled away his fist, and I showed him my red hands before they rapidly reverted to normal. “Not a lot, but enough to ignite something, or burn someone.” I slid my hand over his extended fist, and lifted them up again to examine. “Nothing.”

I turned my eyes on Johnny, who was floating there a bit off the ground. “Okay, Ben got some fire added to his attack. This looks like a natural armor buff of some kind.” I reached out and tapped his chest, the plates there tinking as I did, and white fires wooshed up around my hand from his burning Aura. “Still as hot as the rest of you.” I held up my crimson arm, Vier unharmed there. “Let me shoot a couple things at you.”

A rail tube unfolded on my Bite Bracers as I glided back. “I’ll start small, a hundred mph with steel beads. I know you are nominally immune to a lot of impact force, but this can only help you.”

There was a crackle, and the first bead zipped out, tinged against his chest, and hit the restraining wall on the bounce.

“Barely felt it,” he admitted, scarcely moving.

I nodded and increased the speed up quickly while he sat there and took it, until there was a crack and the plates shattered. He was knocked back through the air with a woof, and molten steel dribbled down the bright hole on his chest as the bead flash-melted.

We all watched as the hole and the cracks around it burned, sealed up, and eventually vanished without leaving a mark.

“Definitely helping with the impacts,” Ben judged smartly. “That last was like a Saturday Night special, Dyna?”

“About.” I tapped my cheek. “On the overall scale, it’s fairly minor, basically working off your plasma form below and just deflecting some. I know you can take a hit, so Ben, give him a wallop into the sky.”

Ben grinned despite himself, his knuckles cracking. “Stay away from the face!” Johnny immediately protested, raising his arms protectively.

“Relax, kid. Just a lovetap.”

BOOM!

Johnny was launched into a flying parabola by the impact of a minor Piston Punch. Ben chuckled despite himself as the Human Torch drew a long flaming arc through the air before finally getting control of his momentum, looping up and around and heading back to us.

“Hey, the kid’s moving pretty quick,” he noticed.

“He’s burning hotter, more propulsion,” I agreed, watching as Johnny swooped back down.

His chest was a fractured mess of dark plates over the white-hot flames beneath, but they were fusing together quickly as he hovered there. I Holo’d up a mirror so he could see himself more clearly.

“Hey!” he pointed at himself with a grin. “That looks... pretty cool!” he declared.

Ben was also looking at himself, the dim fires between his stony hide rising and falling with every breath. “Yeah, I gotta admit it does,” he agreed.

“Both of you, revert to human, then switch back to Elemental.”

Johnny set down on the ground, and his fires went out, taking his dark armor with it. Ben’s rocks powdered and fell away to nothing around him, leaving him back in his human form, too.

They looked a bit surprised that the changes hadn’t carried over or anything, but I just waited there, tapping my finger... loudly...

“Ahem!” Ben coughed, and shifted back to his Elemental Form. It was his normal orange. Johnny flamed on, and his whiter fire-form was burning again normally.

“Rotate your Valence I’s, and shake hands again.” Both of them concentrated, then reached out and grasped one another.

“Ouch!” Ben protested, releasing Johnny almost instantly. Nothing happened.

“Okay, it looks like the Resonance effect starts in human form. Any disagreements?” Both of them shook their heads. “Okay, we’re going to try a sharing effect. Revert, revolve your Valences, Elemental up, shake hands, don’t let go.”

As before, the fire/earth exchange flared up around them, Ben this time unbothered by Johnny’s heat.

“Johnny, start dumping a lot of fire into Ben. Ben, hold your hand up, and after a ten count, release the fire upwards.”

“Got it!” they both said. Johnny’s hand flared with hot light, which flowed down into Ben’s hand, and the fires underneath his hide began to rapidly burn a whole lot hotter, while the orange of his hide began to blacken around the edges.

The mirror was still up. “Sweet Aunt Petunia!” Ben muttered as the effect spread. “It doesn’t hurt, but it still burns, Dyna!”

“Four, five, get your damn arm up, Ben! Seven, eight... ten!”

His other arm was half-blackened, but suddenly all the fires migrated in a subdermal wave to his big palm there, and ejected up into the sky in a burning cone of white-hot flame, the sum of the energy Johnny had been dumping into him.

“Whoa!” Johnny said, watching that. “That was a big fireburst!”

“So, Ben can act as an overcharge capacitor without you having to actually spend any extra effort, Johnny. You two need to find the limits on this, if Ben can hold it without you being in contact, how long he can do so, and so on. I imagine it could be pretty dangerous if you revert to human with a fire charge in, Ben, so don’t DO that.”

“Hah, right! No, don’t think I want to set myself on fire like that, Dyna,” he agreed gruffly.

“Okay, you’re shaking hands, but you’re both right-handed. Break contact.” They released promptly. “Okay, shake with your lefts, cycling your Valence I’s again.” They paused a moment before grasping with their off hands. “Johnny, feed Ben if you can. Ben, just vent it.”

There was a rush of flame from Johnny, spurting through the burning cracks across Ben’s chest and down his right arm, which he vented into the sky in a casual but intense blast of fire. “Your flames are definitely stronger, firetop!” Ben commented, seeing the easy blast reaching out a hundred feet. “Used to take you some effort to generate that kinda heat!”

“I had a lot of time to practice, Ben,” Johnny agreed.

“Ben, opposite. Push your earthpower into Johnny.”

“Huh.” The two looked at one another, then Ben’s unibrow lowered as his blue eyes narrowed.

There was a bulge on Johnny’s arm as the lava-like coating on him thickened up instantly. It rapidly spread down his arm, across his chest and limbs, heavier plates of natural armor on him bulking him up everywhere.