*Thanks out to Q.B., who challenged me to write a story involving some of my favorite characters, and to 'PC,' who beta read this puppy and pestered me to finish.

**I started this several years ago, so please forgive any inconsistencies with present storylines.
 

1. The Childe's Champion
 

LIMBO DIMENSION, ?????????????????

The warrior awoke, choking on the ash filled air. With grim determination, he struggled to breathe, to move, to remember what the hell was going on!

He cupped his hand over his nose and mouth and took in a marginally cleaner breath. Gathering his strength, he erupted to his feet.

Flames!

A whole wall of fire encircled him. As insane as it sounded, the blaze laughed to see him awake, a horrible crackling that made him shiver despite the intense heat. Like a snake, a section of the pyre unraveled from the main body, bobbing and slithering around the unarmed man.

Unarmed? Where was his weapon?

Didn't matter, he thought as he tensed. This was it.

He threw himself to the ground as another section shot out behind him, trying to spear his back. The fire-snake roared with glee and struck. He rolled just in time, leaping as a fireball launched itself at his legs. Soon the small space was filled with flying fireballs, all eerily alive and evilly amused at his desperation.

During a stumbling dodge, he glanced up. To his horror he saw the flame-walls collapse in on itself. Soon he would be engulfed in the conflagration, burned alive.

But damned if he would just wait for it.

With a grim glint in his eye, he ducked another fireball and launched himself into the flame-wall.

He tumbled and rolled through it. Head over heels, side over side, he felt their surprise-yes, they!- their shock temporarily clearing a path for him.

Yes! Almost through! The suicidal gambit was going to pay------

His scream pierced the roaring of the inferno. Close to clearing the fires, they finally recovered enough for one last grab-- and snagged his left arm.

He screamed pure pain as he felt glove, sleeve and skin char to dust.

He screamed as he felt the flames grab at his raw flesh and pull. The warrior, out of any more ideas, screamed again, this time in defiance. Digging his fingers and heels into the rocky ground, he pulled away. Inch by inch, he crawled, feeling his left arm, fiber by fiber, pull apart. He felt his muscles shrivel, his cartilage melt.

He even felt his bones blacken and fall to cinders.

With the last of his arm cauterized to ash, the fires lost their hold on him. They hissed their annoyance as the stubborn mortal tried to scramble to safety.

"Foolish, foolish," the flames shrieked. Ominously, the fires swirled closer, tighter together, compacting into a sphere form.

Silent.

Still.

But only for a brief second.

All hell broke loose.

The warrior heard the explosion and threw himself to the ground, almost blacking out from the jarring pain that was his shoulder. The shockwave ripped across the forsaken land and propelled him into the air. He hit the ground, instinctively crumpling into a ball and rolling to his feet. Vertigo embraced him. Pain darkened his vision. "Stay awake," he snarled to himself. To close his eyes was to die. Grabbing his head with both hands, he concentrated, willing his vision to clear.

The inferno was gone, at least for now. Their self-combustion seemed to have been a final attack on prey who fled out of their reach, but not unscathed. Absently, he rubbed his burnt stump, reviewing his options.

His hand traveled from shoulder to biceps in one smooth motion.

"What the----"

It was an arm--his arm!--whole, but changed. Not flesh and blood, but...something translucent, golden, glowing. Experimentally, he spread his fingers wide, then clenched them into a fist.

A working arm, then. One that looked like August sunshine, and yet... was his. Not some magic construct cast from his imagination, but his, a part of him. Something in him knew this, just as it knew the pain he felt was the ache not of burns, but of ... wrongness.

He shouldn't be able to see his arm like this.

He shouldn't have been attacked by demonic flames.

Surer than he knew his name, he shouldn't even be in this place.

A blast of wind shattered his thoughts. A portal of white light flashed into being before him. It yawned wide in a blink.

An army of hellfire spewed forth, cackling with deafening glee.

With a cry of rage, the warrior stood his ground, a weird inner light radiant behind blue eyes. "Come on then," he yelled, "take me! If you can!" The fires flared at his challenge, ready to turn the rest of him to ash... but the appearance of a child's silhouette within the conflagration subdued their anger.

A child and fire... elements of a reoccurring nightmare. Was this a dream after all?

A pulse of pain in his arm told him, no.

The closer the child came, the sharper his arm throbbed. Instinct hollered for him to run. He knew he should run... but he couldn't, not from this child.

The silhouette became distinct.

He took a step back.

It wasn't who he expected.

A girl's outline, with womanhood's first touch marking her, stood before him. Hands on her hips and chin lifted arrogantly, her delicate, musically accented voice spat out, "Fools!"

The flames flinched.

"Fools," she repeated, shaking her fist at the cowering fires. "When I said I needed a part of his soul-self exposed, I didn't mean for you to drag his dream-body out from his mind. And," she added with shrill outrage, "I certainly didn't want you to charcoal it a chunk at a time!"

Multiple voices around her crackled and hissed in dismay.

"He was already dreaming of fire----"

"---best way, oh mistress---"

"---purified soul piece before you---"

"---malleable from the pain---"

"Shut up," she snapped. The flames immediately obeyed, flickering without a sound. Brittle silence filled the air between the girl and man.

"So," he said calmly, holding up a golden fist. "I presume this is a piece of my soul-self?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Any particular reason you just had to see it?"

Her reply was the ominous, ringing scrape of a sword being drawn.

He immediately fell into a defensive crouch. "I was afraid of this."

"Me too," she said, her voice young and sad. "I didn't want to do it this way." An out-thrust blade of gleaming white pointed straight at him.

It was an order for the flames to take him.

"Talk to me," he yelled, struggling like the damned. "Why me? What do you want?" The flames tackled his body, his left arm flailing, desperately flashing amber lights. He thrust his hand into the writhing mass of fire. They screamed, throwing him down, trapping the glowing limb from wrist to shoulder under his own body. Now held fast by the smothering horde, all he could do was watch the girl come closer, the shining sword in her hand. "Talk to me," he hollered, still trying to fight back.

She paused, the fires sliding away to reveal a sweet faced, wheat- blonde girl. In hands sheathed in glacial metal, she griped her cold-fire sword with firm resolve. Her blue eyes, though, were filled with shame.

He glared up, his eyes sparking with that weird inner light. "Don't do this."

She lifted her sword high and poised it over his exposed radiant hand. "I am sorry." Barking out harsh, unintelligible words, she plunged her sword down.

The icy blade pierced his soul.

AVENGERS MANSION, NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 10, 1999 4:27pm

Steve Rogers bolted out of sleep screaming.

He launched himself out of the sofa, hurdled over tables and chairs, hurled himself through the window and plunged his hand deep into the nearest snow bank.

Burning agony!

"Captain!"

"Are we under attack?"

"What's wrong?"

His eyes flew open (to close his eyes was to die). His fellow Avengers had followed him out and took up defensive position around him.

The Avengers...

Steve looked up. He was kneeling in the shadow of Avengers Mansion.

"Cap, are you hurt?"

"Did he burn himself?"

"He wasn't that close to the fireplace."

"Come on, Cap. Let me see that hand." Dr. Henry Pym gingerly slipped a hand under his friend's unresponsive forearm and lifted. Carefully, he tugged off the red glove. Steve's jaw clenched against the steady pain. With an effort of will, he forced himself to look at his injured hand.

Steve blinked. Slowly, he shook his head.

With a healer's soft touch, Henry examined the hand with a puzzled frown. The large, pale hand, rough from years of hard use, had not a mark on it.

No wound.

One of the younger Avengers, a woman with vibrant red hair, peered over his shoulder. "It was a bad dream," Firestar asked in amazement. "I- I didn't think you got nightmares!"

That surprised a smile from Steve. "At my age?" (fire...) "I get a few."

"Well," she said, awkwardly patting his hand, "at least this one is over."

(A child and fire!) "Yes." Steve got to his feet and pulled on his glove. "I'm sorry, troops. I didn't mean to alarm you...or to make this mess." Grinning ruefully, he shook he head. "I better get this cleaned up before Jarvis gets back."

"Naw," said another young Avenger, Justice. With a nudge of will, he telekinetically began to pick up the scattered shards of glass and wood. "If you don't mind me saying, sir, that nightmare...well, you look wiped out."

"He's right, Cap," Henry said, "go on in. We'll clean up. Get some real rest."

With a nod of thanks and a grin of reassurance, he walked back inside.

Henry frowned.

Firestar caught his look. "What is it, Dr. Pym?"

"He didn't argue."

"No, he didn't, did he," she mused. "Strange."

Back inside, Steve paused in the living room. His shield, an indestructible discus painted with the nation's colors, leaned against the couch that he had napped in. He knelt, staring at the reflection in the bright metal.

Steve let out a shuddering breath.

What did he dream? He remembered fire...there was a child, but...no, it wasn't the boy.

He slipped off his left glove and laid his hand on his shield, his oldest battle companion. With his gloved fingers, he traced an unseen outline on the back of his bare hand.

A girl. He had dreamed of a little girl, covered in flames. Somehow he got hurt in his dream, and even though he couldn't see it, he could still feel the wound. To touch it didn't make it better or worse. He could move it fine. Still, it hurt, burned, somehow it was bleeding, he could feel it. Surer than he knew his name, he wasn't imagining it either.

"God, help me," he breathed, "what's happening?"