From the Ashes a Phoenix rises...to burn the world

His eyes opened, staring at a night time sky. Pitch black, all around. He felt the ground. It was gritty...with some small rocks in it. It was sand. He was on a beach.....but where? He sat up. He could now feel his clothes, soaked. He looked around, absorbing the familiarity of the place. He had been here before. But how long ago was "before"? He was in Chicago, on a beach by lake Michigan. Had he come out of there, wearing this suit? Why would he wear a suit into the water.

He got to his feet, staggered a bit, and turned around. He saw a lone bonfire, nobody around it. He starred into the flame as if he was being pulled into a trance. Before he realized it, he was sitting on a log in front of the fire, just staring into it. His vision was taken over by the flames. And it all came back to him.

He was Fredrick Van Flamel, alias Dr.Everyone. A lab accident had given him the ability to change form and the power of complete control over fire. A raid on Washington D.C. had resulted in him being injured and losing his power to change forms. He was in India, fighting an alien and his daughter. He scarred her...blew up the city. He'd killed himself in the blast,

And then, the robot? Destroyer, the cyborg he built. And the little girl. Why did he see a little girl covered in blood. Was it that one girl he tossed.....no. It was Gluttony, his cannibal angel little girl. He remembered it all. But how did he get here. He was dead. He was...dead.

"All I saw was blackness," He said, speaking to himself.

"In the blackness, a blue marble glowed. I zoomed into it and saw it's history flash before my eyes. I saw it's condition change over the millions of years. I saw humans destroy it, killing it, and themselves. And then, blackness. Cold darkness."

He remembered his fire power. Was it still there? Was his insanity, still there? The insanity was obviously gone. He saw that it made no sense to destroy the world. His plans were always run in and destroy. No plan at all. But that was gone. His fire power? He couldn't get it to work. So he did the only logical thing to do. He jumped in the bonfire.

His body went up in flames. It hurt at first, hurt so badly. And then it didn't. He got up and out of the fire. He checked his skin, felt his face, his hair. All of it fine. He flicked his fingers, and he felt the fire run through him. A match sized flame burned at his finger tips. Then he just sent a quick though, and his whole hand was aflame. Simply willing it, his whole body started on fire. And he flew into the night, shouting a loud but quick message.

"I AM REBORN! DR.EVERYONE LIVES AGAIN!"