"Franklin. What do you think fire is?"
The forge roared, its glow flickering across the soot-stained walls of their small home. His mother''s voice was calm but carried a weight he didn''t yet understand.
Franklin, just six years old, sat on a wooden workbench, his feet swinging above the dirt floor. His hands were covered in soot, tiny fingers clutching a discarded iron nail. The heat made the air thick, pressing against his skin, but he had grown used to it.
He frowned. "Something that burns things?"
His mother exhaled through her nose and set her hammer down. She lifted a slab of glowing metal, its deep orange surface pulsing like the heart of a dying sun.
"Fire can destroy, yes…" She dipped the metal into the water beside her.
TSSSSSSHHH!
Steam burst out violently, twisting into the air like ghosts trying to escape. Rael flinched but didn''t look away.
His mother studied him, her eyes dark as iron.
"Your father…" She hesitated, her grip tightening on the tongs. "He wielded fire not to burn, but to protect."
Franklin''s small hands clenched.
"Then why does everyone fear it?"
His mother hesitated. She didn''t need to answer. He already knew.
"Monster."
"Cursed child."
"A wildfire waiting to consume us all."
She knelt in front of him, brushing a smudge of soot from his cheek. Her fingers trembled.
"Because you haven''t learned to control it yet."
Franklin swallowed. His fingers twitched. He remembered the wooden doll. How it blackened. How the flames leapt, devoured, spread.
Fire wasn''t the problem.
He was.
---
The day Franklin left home, his mother pressed something into his palm.
An iron ring. Worn. Heavy.
"Your father''s people will teach you what I cannot," she whispered. "Learn. Grow. Come back stronger."
Then she turned away before he could see her tears.
The Scorch Clan.
A brotherhood of fire-wielders, descendants of an ancient Titan. They lived deep within the Ember Wastes, where the land itself burned and only the strong survived.
By the time he reached their fortress, his feet were cracked and bleeding. The heat of the Ember Wastes was unlike anything he had ever felt—dry, suffocating, relentless.
The fortress loomed before him. Its blackened walls were carved from volcanic rock, the iron gates etched with Titan symbols, each mark a history of fire and war.
Rael took a breath.
"I AM FRANKLIN, SON OF MICHAEL! I SEEK TO MASTER THE FIRE OF THE SCORCH!"
Silence.
Then—BOOM.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The ground beneath him collapsed.
Franklin plunged—straight into fire.
---
The heat swallowed him whole.
It wasn''t real fire. The pit was filled with superheated stones and embers, meant to break weaklings.
But the pain was real.
Three days. No food. No water. Only heat.
By the third day, his vision swam. His lips were cracked, his breath shallow. His legs gave out.
A shadow loomed over him.
Marcus Scorch.
The clan chief. A giant of a man, his body lined with molten veins, his eyes burning like dying embers.
Franklin barely had the strength to lift his head.
"Not bad, brat," Marcus grunted.
Franklin gasped. "Th-Then… teach me."
The giant warrior grinned.
"That''s what I wanted to hear."
From that day forward, Franklin wasn''t just a boy trying to control his fire.
He was a Scorchbearer.
And the Scorch became his family.
---
Training was hell.
"Too slow."
"Too weak."
"Control it, or it controls you."
Every day, Marcus pushed him past his limits.
The Scorch Clan didn''t just wield fire—they became it.
Franklin learned to breathe fire, to shape it, to make it his own.
Scorch Arts – Ember Steps: Walking through flames as if they were solid ground.
Scorch Arts – Furnace Breath: Exhaling raw heat that could melt iron.
Scorch Arts – Blazing Palm: A strike that burned hotter than the sun.
But fire alone wasn''t enough.
One night, Marcus sat across from him at the forge, hammering a blade.
"Tell me, Franklin."
Clang.
"What''s stronger than fire?"
Franklin frowned. "Nothing."
Marcus grinned. "Wrong."
Clang.
"A wildfire burns hot. A forge burns hotter. But the hottest flame?"
He lifted the blade—glowing white-hot.
"Is the one that burns without being seen."
Franklin stared at the blade.
"Control," Marcus said. "Power means nothing without control."
Franklin clenched his fists.
That night, he didn''t sleep.
He burned instead.
Not all of it was war.
There were moments—small ones.
Training in the lava pools with yufus, the hot-headed idiot who once challenged a lava eel to a fight (and lost).
Stealing extra rations with Sol, the only person who could out-eat Franklin.
Listening to the elders tell stories of Titans long forgotten.
For the first time in his life, Franklin felt something he never had before.
A family.
And for the first time in his life, he feared losing them.
Then came the Black Sun.
It happened on the night of the Black Sun.
Rael stood atop the fortress walls, staring at the sky.
The sun—wrong. A deep, bloody red. The air—heavy. The ground—trembling.
Then—fire erupted.
Not normal fire.
Something darker. Something alive.
From the inferno—a Titan emerged.
A behemoth of living flame and molten rock. Its body was a mountain of shifting lava, its arms like magma rivers, its face a skull of burning obsidian.
It wasn''t just fire—it was an ancient force, a forgotten Titan of Destruction, The first generation titan, Ignis the titan of fire who woke up underground.
"HUH ,ARE THIS HUMANS?....DIE."
The Scorch clan roared in defiance.
Marcus was the first to charge.
His greatsword flashed white-hot, carving a crescent of flame through the air. He brought it down—
—the Titan caught it.
Molten claws closed around the blade, melting it instantly.
Marcus''s eyes widened.
"Impossible—!"
The Titan swiped—a tidal wave of molten rock.
BOOM!
Buildings crumbled. Ashfang warriors screamed as lava swallowed them whole.
"SPREAD OUT! HIT IT FROM ALL SIDES!"
The warriors attacked. Fire met fire. Blades clashed against molten skin.
Franklin stood at the front, his Lava Core pulsing.
His flames weren''t just heat—they were weight, pressure, force.
"Scorch art: SCORCHING Punch!"
He slammed his fist into the ground—lava exploded upward, spearing the Titan''s side.
It howled—but it wasn''t hurt.
It was laughing.
"FIRE? YOU THINK TO CHALLENGE ME WITH FIRE?"
The Titan inhaled—
—and the flames of the Scorch clan warriors vanished.
Their Cores dimmed.
It was devouring their fire.
The Titan grew stronger.
"FALL BACK!"
It was too late.
The Titan slammed both arms down—
—the entire fortress erupted in flames.
Franklin watched them die.
Warriors turned to cinders. The stronghold melted. The sky turned red with fire and death.
"No—NO!"
Marcus turned to him—his Core already burning out.
"Franklin! SURVIVE!"
The Titan''s molten fist crashed down—
Marcus vanished in fire.
The heat swallowed Franklin whole.
---
Franklin was dying.
His Lava Core—cracked. His skin—burning. His breath—shallow.
Darkness swallowed him.
Then—a voice.
"You are not ready… but you will come."
He floated.
A vast space of fire and shadow.
Before him—a mountain of bones.
Titan bones.
And at its peak—a flame unlike any other.
It pulsed. It called to him.
"You will burn… as they once did."
Then—he woke up.
---
Franklin stood at the entrance of the dungeon.
Behind him—ashes. Ruin. Ghosts.
Ahead—darkness. The unknown. Destiny.
He clenched his fists.
"Come back stronger."
"Survive."
His Lava Core pulsed.
No.
It erupted.
Franklin stepped forward.
And the Path of Scorch began.
---
To be continued.