You’ve always had a way of drifting toward the flame, haven’t you, James?

[Nero stands in his control room. His fingers brush through the soft flicker of a candle’s flame.]

Even now — grown in age but not caution — you lean into the heat like a moth that refuses to understand why its wings keep turning to dust. People call you a boy, not because of the years you’ve lived, but because of the lessons you’ve refused to learn.

Fire has been your family’s curse, and still you treat it like a toy — convinced it will behave differently for you.

[Nero massages the flame between his gloved fingers.]

Your mother was the first to burn. Not because she played with fire, but because she shared a home with two people who couldn’t see it creeping along the walls.

You were small. Helpless. Just a child watching the world glow orange before it went black.

She left the world that night — swallowed whole by something she never invited in — and yet its shadow stayed with you.

[He leans down to meet the flame — its shimmer rippling across his metal mask.]

Then there was your father. He lived, but the fire never let him go. It sculpted him into its own grim monument. A face carved by heat; a warning etched in flesh. He carried every melted inch like a sermon written in scar tissue, and every time he looked at you, he begged you silently not to make the same mistake.

[Nero moves his hand back and forth over the flame.]

But the thing about you, James, is that you hear the warning and still you follow the warmth. You convince yourself the blaze that punished your parents will somehow spare you.

Every spark becomes an invitation. Every flicker calls your name. You run toward the danger that has already proved what it’s capable of, believing that you’re somehow wiser.

But you aren’t outsmarting the fire.

[He shakes his head — displeasure flickering in his eyes.]

You’re feeding it.

[Nero slams his fist down — causing the candle to wobble dangerously.]

I see the glow in your eyes when the next bad choice lights up in front of you, James. You tell yourself you’re just curious. Just testing the heat. Just getting close enough to feel alive.

But you’re not standing near the flame — you’re stepping inside it. And whether it’s pride, fear, guilt, or stubbornness driving you, the result will be the same as it was for them.

Three people. One family. One repeating obsession.

Your mother consumed. Your father disfigured. And now you… inching toward the same furnace — as though destiny carved a straight line from their ashes to your footsteps.

[He sweeps his arm across the table, sending the candle crashing into the wall.]

Fire doesn’t remember pain, Destructo. It doesn’t forgive; it doesn’t change. People have to do that.

If you keep chasing heat like it owes you something, you won’t just be the next one burned — you’ll be the last.

[A violent orange ignites in Nero’s eyes.]

Play with fire long enough, boy, and you don’t just get burnt…

[Darkness.]

You become the ashes it leaves behind.