It's been three weeks since the incident at the train yard, and Alex still has almost no control over this power. 

Whenever he gets too angry - or focuses too much on his anger, because he is always angry - his eyes light up. He got particularly pissed at an asshole at school two days in and his hands actually lit up - he had to let the guy get away while he tried to get them to go out again. And that was only the first of many such incidents.

It's a damn good thing most people apparently can't see the flames, is all he's saying. 

He hasn't managed the serenity state again, either, but considering that the prerequisite in that case was Jamie's near-death... well, he hasn't been experimenting. 

Besides, even if the perfect control was nice, the... other effects, were not. That single-minded tunnel vision could be dangerous. 

Jamie hasn't had any trouble - his violet-orange wisps of fire come to his hands as easy as breathing, and he can do some real interesting shit with them. He can use them to burn, of course, but that seems like a waste when he can also do things like, for example, enhance the force of his blows, or make more or less permanent copies of things, or multiply sensations. 

That last discovery was pretty great. 

Meanwhile, Alex's fire, when he can get it to stick around for a bit, only seems good for destroying. Though, it doesn't hurt Jamie - or, at least, it doesn't burn Jamie. Everything else is fair game, though, including Alex's hands, to some extent. It looks like he's got a permanent sunburn at this point. 

He definitely needs to figure this out. If he has to keep letting assholes go, to make sure he doesn't leave them with unexplainable burns, he's gonna explode. Maybe literally. 

Jamie pokes at the pile of small stones on the ground, focusing on replicating just one of them at a time. New rocks clatter down on the pile in small handfuls for a while, before he manages to narrow down the flame he's using to target only one. Then they hit the pile one by one, making little clink noises. 

"Think I'm getting it," he comments to Alex. 

"Great," Alex says, glancing up from his book. "Think you can narrow it down more? If you can get to the cellular level... Being able to regen other people without worrying about causing cancer or something could be pretty damn useful." 

"I dunno," he says, "Not sure how I'd tell what I was doing at that level, anyway. Maybe there's a trick to sensing or something?" 

"There is," a smooth, lightly accented voice says from behind and to the left of Alex. 

In a uncomfortable parallel to the train yard three weeks ago, Alex jumps to his feet, whirling to block the newcomer's path to his brother. Flame flickers up his arms, making him suppress a wince at the added burn. 

It's a man in a nice suit. Looks to be in his early 60s. He regards Alex with a calm expression.

"No need for that," the man claims, nodding to the Wrath lighting up the boy's arms.

"You can-" well of course he can see them, he wouldn't have commented otherwise.

"...Easy for you to say, not so easy to do," he mutters, trying to tamp down on the anger-panic enough to withdraw the fire. 

"From what I understand," he says, watching as the boy struggles, "Trying to be calm will never work for you, with those Flames. Direct the manifestation of your Wrath elsewhere, instead. The Wrath Sky I knew directed them to his eyes." 

Eyeing him suspiciously, Alex nevertheless attempts his advice. It's not easy, but- he manages. 

His eyes glow, lightly, the colour shifting from his natural blue-grey to a hellish red-orange.

"...Thanks," he says. And then, "Who are you? What do you want?" That advice cannot have come free. 

"And what's a 'Wrath Sky'?" Jamie adds, peering up at him from the space between Alex's legs.

"I am called Visconti," he tells them, "A dear friend sent me to find you. He only recently learned of your existence - you are his grandsons." 

"Did unlocking the fire let him find us?" It would be a weird coincidence if that wasn't the case, he thinks. Unless that asshole who sicced the mob on them was reacting to this grandfather's discovery of them.

"Yes. He has had an agent searching for relatives for several years now, but their technique only allows them to track Flame Actives." 

"Why has he been searching for relatives?" He asks. "And, you didn't answer James' question: what's a Wrath Sky?" 

"It would be best to a answer that question after a full explanation of Flames," he says of the latter.

"However, the other question is simple enough to answer: he was searching for relatives because he is getting old, and all of his sons have passed," he tells them mildly, "The Family is an old one, with many dependants, and cannot go unled. It is our hope one or both of you will suit." 

"You want us to inherit some kind of noble family?" Jamie asks, incredulous. 

Yeah, that seems real unlikely. Alex has no idea how magic fire politics usually go, but dropping a big inheritance on two nobodies out of nowhere is the kind of thing you see in stories, not real life. 

He squints at the man suspiciously. 

"There are no other viable options," Visconti tells them. "Were there any, we would still have come to collect you - you are Skies of the Vongola Family, it is not safe to leave you outside our protection, for yourselves or for us. As it is, despite the complications your Secondaries offer, you are the best options." 

"Collect us? What do you mean by protection?" If they're going to try to keep them locked up somewhere for their own safety, they're gonna have a problem. 

"The protection of our reputation, and of knowledge and training. You are both untrained Skies - you are uniquely vulnerable to kidnapping and being pressured into bonding through the flame-enhanced variation of Stockholm Syndrome. We would not keep you from finding your freedom, however, within reason," he adds to James. "You are a Cloudy Sky." 

Being untrained Skies makes them uniquely vulerable to Stockholm Syndrome. Well, that's certainly a sentance. 

"How do we know you're telling the truth about your intentions? For all we know you could be representing a group that wants to pressure us into bonds like that." 

"Your Intuition has not warned you I am lying, has it?" He asks. "You must have noticed it warning you, since you became Active. Perhaps even before then, as well." 

Intuition? 

...He has always had good instincts about liars, but the past few weeks he's been noticing them everywhere. It's been pretty damn aggravating. Hasn't helped his control at all. 

He hadn't really connected that to the fire. Apparently he should have. 

"...No, I haven't noticed you lying," he admits. He glances down at Jamie for confirmation; sometimes he notices the liars he doesn't. 

He shakes his head. He hasn't noticed any lies either. 

...Also, he pushes himself up so he can move to stand next to Alex instead of lying on the ground behind him.