This is a Sky High story. Warnings are AU (takes place a year after film), Slash, OC(s), OOC, possible Mpreg., Supernatural Activities, possible Character Death, more warnings may come.

Summary: It is a tradition in the Peace family for the chosen male of the recent generation to tap into the power of the phoenix blood that runs through his veins. Peirce Peace was the chosen one of the last generation, but things went horribly wrong. Now it's Warren's turn and he has invited Will to attend his ceremony; this has Steve Stronghold worried, for he attended Peirce's ceremony himself, and watched his best friend grow mad. After the ceremony is done, Warren changes; but the changes seem to be taking a toll on him. Can Will succeed where his father had failed?

Pairings: Eventual Will/Warren, past Steve/Peirce, the other pairings will be said within story.

Prologue

"Really?" Will asked Warren hopefully after what he had heard.

"Yeah…" Warren said quietly. "My grandfather had explained to me that I can bring only one person who is not of family blood to the ceremony; I chose you."

"Wow, that's great!" Will said. "I'd love to go. I want to see what all this hype is about, with you talking about it all the time."

Warren blushed slightly.

For the past three weeks, all Warren had done was talk about his upcoming ceremony. At first, his friends though it was just Warren being haughty; but soon, they realized that he was extremely nervous. Warren had explained countless times to them that it was a family tradition that went down from generation to generation to each chosen male who had the "mark".

Everyone in their group wondered just what the mark was; only Will knew because he had seen Warren's very unusual birthmark. Will had seen it countless times, but he never knew what it was about; he originally thought it was a tattoo until Warren had said otherwise. The birthmark was basically in a shape of a pair of reddish brown wings settled right between his shoulder blades, almost an inch long; the mark looked like flamed wings; the coloration of the mark made it look like it was a burn mark more than a birthmark.

Since the ceremony was a family tradition, it made the gang wonder what had Warren so worried. It had been done countless times, whatever was done in the ceremony, so nothing should go wrong, right? Still, as the night of the ceremony drew closer, Warren seemed to get more jumpy and anxious; which both worried and amused Warren's friends.

With only four days before Warren's ceremony would commence; Will found that he couldn't wait for it to happen, to see if Warren's worrying was really warranted.

"So, anything interesting happened today?" Josie asked her son as she ate dinner.

The Stronghold family was currently around the dining room table enjoying their first family dinner in months together.

Will nodded as he chewed on his food.

"Yeah…" Will said after he swallowed. "Warren had asked me to come to this ceremony that he has been talking about for weeks." Will went back to cutting another piece of his dinner, when he heard the sudden clatter of iron utensils hitting glass.

Looking up at his parents, Will was quite surprised to see that both of them had turned deathly pale.

Steve slowly swallowed his food and spoke in a surprisingly quiet voice.

"Wh-what did Warren call the ceremony?" Steve stuttered.

Will, frightened by his father's display of fear, thought for a moment before he shook his head.

"He never named it…" Will said. "He just told me that he was the chosen one for this generation, on account of some birthmark between his shoulder blades."

If possible, Steve grew paler. Without a word, he stood up and walked from the dining room; leaving his family alone.

It was another tense quiet moment before Will spoke.

"Mom…?" Will tried to question.

Josie shook her head.

"It is not my place to say anything…" Josie said; then she filled her mouth with salad.

Will walked back and forth in front of the doorway to the Secret Sanctum, trying to figure out how he was going to approach his father with his questions. Will didn't have a lot of questions, but he had a feeling that they were going to be tough for his father to answer.

Just as Will was about to give up and walk away, the door opened and his father stepped out. Will looked up at his father and just saw a grim look on his normally happy-go-lucky face and knew that he wasn't going to like what he was going to hear. Steve ushered for his son to a pole and Will slid down it, Steve himself sliding down on the other one.

Once Will landed, he instantly noticed that the pool table was littered with photos. Looking at his father as he stepped beside him, he simply lifted his chin once towards the table; signaling that he was welcomed to look at the pictures.

Will made his way to the pictures and saw that they were pictures of his father from when he was a child to a teenager to a young adult, all of them with his father and some other unrecognizable person. There were only a few pictures of Steve and the said person, some with other people, as children and adults; but there were a lot of pictures of Steve and the other guy as teenagers. Both his father and the unknown person doing a bunch of things, playing around, working, talking, anything; it was obvious that the person in the photo was a good friend of his father's.

As Will shifted the photos around the pool table, one picture quickly caught his eye; picking it up, he was surprised to see that whoever the person was, had the same birthmark on his back as Warren did. Then looking at another picture Will saw that the unknown man bore a striking resemblance to his best friend, but he seemed to be a buffer, rougher version of Warren. Will looked at his father in shock.

"Dad is this…" Will paused, still not quite believing it. "Barron Battle?"

"Back then he was known as Pierce Peace…" Steve said. "My best friend."

Will had never known birth name of his best friend's father till then; he knew what the extra P in Warren's initials stood for right then. One day the year before, Will had caught a sneak peak at Warren's luggage as he was packing to go away for a weekend; the initials on some of the bags were W.P.P., Will asked what the other P stood for and Warren promptly answered "Piss off".

Seeing another photo that caught his attention, Will saw that it was of his father as a young man, obviously just beginning as a hero along with Barron Battle; Steve's outfit was in a different fashion then, but still the same color theme. Barron Battle's outfit color theme seemed to be strictly black and red; just like his own son's.

Placing a hand on Will's shoulder, Steve steered his son over to the chairs and motioned for his son to sit down.

Steve took a deep sigh before he spoke.

"Pierce wasn't always known as "Barron Battle"." Steve said.

"He wasn't?" Will asked; ever since he had heard of Warren's father, the only name that everyone called him by was that.

"No, he, as a hero, was known as the Phoenix." Steve had explained. "It was both a name and a power that was passed down in his family for generations; the same power that Warren will receive."

That caught Will's attention.

"I myself, like you, had been invited to attend the ceremony; it was called "The Rise of the Phoenix"." Steve said. "It seems that within the Peace family, only a few people have the blood of an actual Phoenix running through their veins."

That was news to Will; Warren had never told him that.

"When the ceremony is done, the powers that the Phoenix blood has will be unlocked." Steve said. "And the chosen person will become stronger than they ever could have alone without the blood."

"So that's what happened to Mr. Peace?" Will asked, showing his respect.

Steve nodded.

"The change can be too much for the chosen one at times…" Steve said. "Like it was for Pierce."

Will really didn't like where the story was going.

"Normally for the chosen one, the power changes strength and appearance, and sometimes one's mentality; but with Pierce, the power corrupted his mind." Steve said.

Will remained quiet, waiting for his father to continue.

"The change was very subtle in the beginning, I hardly noticed anything at first; if anything, it was a very good thing for Pierce at the time." Steve said. "He was suddenly able to focus more, which showed in his power drastically. He was an average student; then suddenly he was making the honor-roll every semester. I was in the fog a little; he hardly noticed anything except for the control over his power."

"Well, what happened for him to turn villainous?" Will asked.

"The first sign, I didn't notice then, happened in senior year." Steve said. "We were two of the twenty advanced beginning heroes, together along with everyone else; we helped patrol the city we resided in outside of Sky High." Steve pinched the bridge of his nose as he continued. "One day, there was a break in at the city bank; some of the main heroes of the town were out of town helping with some war overseas. The robbers had managed to round up about thirty hostages and were demanding everything from routine to outrageous. Peirce that day oddly enough, wasn't as peaceful as he normally was."

Will knew the story was about to turn at that point.

"Before anyone could so much as bat an eyelash one instant, the Phoenix was suddenly up in the air flying towards the bank. What had shocked me so much besides the flying was that Pierce had wings!!" Steve had said. "It had been nearly a year after the ceremony and he had never mentioned anything about receiving wings along with his newfound powers. I had seen him without a shirt countless times and I had seen two cuts right at his shoulder blades, he told me it was nothing to worry about."

Will was shocked himself, he wondered if Warren would have wings.

"Despite the yells of the police chief, the Phoenix had managed to break into the bank himself. All everyone heard on the outside were screams coming from the inside; a few moments later, the hostages came running out of the bank." Steve said. "I, along with whatever other superheroes and police officers went in to see what had happened. What we had found, I just couldn't believe."

Will leaned forward in his seat, waiting for his father to tell him what had happened.

"On the floor in the center of the lobby, were the robbers. Both were groaning in pain and literally smoking hot." Steve had said. "Basically, Phoenix had barbequed them upon entry from what some of the witnesses say. The robbers were cover in burns basically from head to toe, that ranged from three to the near impossible seven degree burns." (A/N: How high does the burn degree go? Is a seven impossible?)

Will leaned back in his seat.

"From that day on, I had kept an eye on Pierce. He seemed to regret what he had done that day; but at the same time, he didn't." Steve said. "After that day, we both went on in life; we went through college together, and before American Boy; Phoenix was my partner. Until one day, he just up and disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Will echoed.

Steve nodded.

"There was no warning or clue, absolutely nothing signaling that he was leaving. One day I didn't hear from him and went to his apartment the next day to find out if he was okay; only to find that he wasn't there. Everything he owned was there, even his motorcycle; but he never came back, no matter how long I waited." Steve said. "After awhile, the UHHQ (United Hero Headquarters) paired me up with American Boy; he was originally a temporary sidekick, as I was still waiting for Pierce to come back from wherever he was; then after a couple years, AB became my permanent sidekick."

"So, you went through the battle of Royal Pain without Phoenix." Will said.

Steve nodded.

"I had the help of your mother to defeat her the first time around…" Steve said. "If Peirce were around, he most likely would have been the best man at our wedding. You were three years old when the news of Barron Battle started."

Will vaguely remembered his parents and many other people talking of Barron Battle; but he was only three at the time, he couldn't care less then. But there, in front of his father; he wanted to know everything.

"At first, I had no idea who Barron Battle was; all I knew was that he was a murderous fiend who needed to be stopped." Steve had said. "Barron was known for his wings; but they were very different from Phoenix's wings. The wings Phoenix had were covered in golden feathers that had some that were red as well; making it look like his wings had red streaks. But Barron's wings were black, leathery naked wings, not one feather on either one."

"How did you find out that he was Pierce?" Will asked.

"We were in a battle just outside of the city in some field; I had to lead him away from the city because every fireball I dodged made something burst into flames. Plus I needed more room to beat him around." Steve said. "Barron seemed to be getting restless, so with one attack as he readied for it; the shirt he was wearing burned off. He sent an attack at me in the shape of a flaming bird, and it hit me, knocking me clear off my feet. I couldn't believe it at first, because that was Phoenix's signature attack."

Again, Will leaned forward.

"After that attack, Battle just stopped. He looked at me for a moment and turned around and just walked away." Steve said. "A very specific marking on his back caught my eye."

"The wing shaped birthmark." Will said.

Steve nodded.

"If it hadn't been for that birthmark, I would have never believed that Barren was once my best friend." Steve said. "From that day on, we were sworn enemies."

"So…" Will said; trying to word his next question kindly. "What lead to his capture?"

"His wife and son…" Steve said; not looking too happy.

"What?" Will asked.

"I had told UHHQ that Phoenix was now Barron Battle after my discovery. UHHQ agents quickly went on to investigate just what Pierce had been doing all of those years." Steve said.

"And they found Mrs. Peace and Warren." Will said.

Again, Steve nodded.

"Imagine how shocked we were when we found that Barron's wife was none other than Nobel Peace." Steve said. "She was one of the biggest known up and coming heroines at the time; and her husband was Barron Battle. It was a little known fact among most heroes that she had had a child, let alone a five year old son; at the time you yourself was only four and a half."

Will thought for a moment; that was around the time he had met Layla.

"Barron soon after disappeared again; but everyone knew that he was still keeping contact with his wife and son; if there was any love left in his heart, it was strictly for those two." Steve had said. "So this gave UHHQ an idea, but Nobel Peace wasn't cooperating with them and their original plan gave way to a new one."

"Which was?" Will asked.

"Hold both Nora and Warren hostage; they knew that once Barron got word of his family being held, that he'd come out of hiding." Steve said.

"Did he?" Will asked.

"Yeah…" Steve said sadly. "Warren, at five, witnessed his father kill seven people and saw me defeat and drag his father away. If it weren't for Nora holding Warren back, most likely he would have been caught within the crossfire trying to help out his father; he had shown signs of his power even then."

Will knew now why Warren to that day was so awkward around his father, he had witnessed him take his own father away from him.

"I think that was the last time Warren ever saw his father…" Steve said. "He was placed in a UVLD (Ultra Villain Lockdown) prison, the first of its kind at the time, with a quadruple life sentence."

Will sat down quietly, thinking over everything his father had told him.

"So that is why Warren is so worried about the ceremony." Will whispered.

"He's afraid he will turn out like his father." Steve said.

To be continued…

Will Warren go through with the ceremony?

Will knows Warren's secret now…

What's going to happen next…?

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