Monique Marques was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States. He parents were both Caribbean islanders who moved to the New Orleans in the 1980s. Monique, for the most part, being the oldest of her four siblings, was tasked with taking care of them. Sadly, her parents got in trouble with the law, leaving Monique to raise her siblings by herself.  She had to work three jobs just to get by and put food on the table. Her work schedule led to her not spending as much time with her siblings, causing them to also get into trouble like their parents. Monique tried all she could until finally her mother was released from jail. Monique ran away the next day.

 

For most of her teenage years, Monique got herself into trouble. Bad boys, drugs, sex, theft and even kidnapping at one point. At one point, she was caught up in a police sting and was surrounded by police as part of the sting.  That's when Monique's mutant powers kicked in for the first time. As a result, Monique used her mutant powers for the first time, wrecking dozens of cars and police vehicles as well as inflicting several officers with first degree burns. She was eventually arrested, however, because she had super powers, she was imprisoned in an old concrete bunker at a rundown (and practically condemned) maximum security prison. While incarcerate there, the Soltan Star Empire invaded Earth in January of 2000.  

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The Soltans weren't necessarily concerned with Louisiana and only sent a 400-troop battalion to cover the Louisiana swampy region. Not long after taking over New Orleans, one of the prison guards, Darnel Davis, knowing a squad of Soltans were on their way to kill off everyone in the prison went from cell-to-cell releasing the inmates telling them 'there's no way I'm going to let a single person die in here because of a bunch of invadin' aliens (Soltans)'. As it was, Soltan intelligence identified that incarcerated humans, when freed from their prisons, were the most dangerous rebel fighters to deal with, placing these prison 'purges' as a priority 7 status in the Soltan order of step-by-step invasion processes (obviously a step that is considered pretty high on their invasion 'to do' list).  When Davis finally got to the last cell, Monique's, the warden and two troopers on their way to help Davis and Monique escape, were instead gunned down and killed by the squad of advancing Soltan troops. Monique, still stuck in her cell, saw Davis shot right before her own eyes as she was looking through the reinforced concrete vault door's window slat seconds from being released by Davis. The Soltan squad leader came up to the window, laughed at Monique in its alien laugh, then closed and jammed the window slat slider shut, leaving Monique trapped in her cell to die. Monique had other plans.

 

Thanks to the cell's ancient ventilation system (which was layers of crisscrossed reinforced steel rebar so she couldn't melt her way out and crawl through the ceiling's concrete chimney-like ventilation shaft), Monique used the oxygen available from the shaft to fuel a slow buildup of her power, something she'd never done before and was unsure if it'd work. For the next 2 hours, she had to learn to focus, concentrate and put everything she had into increase her mutant powers fire intensity a few degrees at a time until if was hot enough to crumble the old concrete and disintegrate the vault door and door frame.  Of course doing all of this set off the Soltan regional thermal sensors causing the same squad to return to the prison to deal with whatever the 'issue' there was. Expecting it to simply be a building fire, the Soltans stocked up on fire-snuffing grenades designed to suck the oxygen out of the air from whatever fire was burning. When Monique had finally freed herself, the Soltans literally had just rounded the corner back to Monique's cell, seeing her in her fiery form. The Soltans then dumped at least 20 of their fire-suppression grenades in front of Monique, creating a massive oxygen-less vacuum.

 

Monique and her powers were unaffected at their new high-powered, oxygen-creating state; a state she later called her 'conflagration' mode.

 

Monique instead extended her powers outward and vaporized the Soltan squad in a flash of her powers, including destroying half of the prison wing itself. Thankfully, at that point, all other humans in the wing were either already dead or had escaped.  Monique escaped, grabbing a fire-retardant suit from the nearby empty firehouse.  She went to her old home to find none of her siblings there (and still missing to this day). She did, however, find her mother shot in the head with a bullet, dead in the living room floor with two suitcases of her stuff next to the front door (and none of the sibling's stuff or suitcases; all their stuff was still there in the house, never packed). She looked everywhere for them, but after a few weeks, Monique believed they'd most likely been killed in any of the hundreds of 'purges' the Soltans were doing in town squares to those 'unable to work or too young or old to do labor'. Monique eventually came across others who'd escaped her prison and/or other hiding in the bayous from the Soltans. Thanks to a bit of Cajun ingenuity and swamp-based stealth, this band of oddball misfits grew into a rebel army. With Monique using her new fire-based powers, she lead the charge in nearly every raid and/or interdiction mission against the Soltans in the area for the next few months. While fighting, she got the codename of 'Feu-Follet', a Cajun name variant of a Will 'o the Wisp. As a result of Monique's group's rebellious actions against the Soltans, an entire 2000-troop Soltan regiment was sent to Louisiana to stop the rebels.

 

That wasn't enough to stop Monique AKA 'Feu-Follet' and the 'Knights of Nola' as they were now called.

 

Eventually, the Soltans sent in a 3500-troop Brigade. That's when the Knights of Nola began to lose.  Monique herself had been hurt bad in one such battle, leaving her incapacitated for days. That's when a cavalry of rebels from the northern United States came calling, led by a mutant who also had mutant-based fire powers calling himself Derek Adams, or better yet, known by his codename "Firebird". Thanks to the northern rebel team's intervention, Monique and her Knights of Nola were given their first reprieve of the invasion. After a few days of recovery and with the aid of the northern rebels (who primarily were from the Detroit area), Monique, as Feu-Follet, went back into action, this time, going on the offense and taking down most of the Soltan brigade with Firebird and both their rebel armies. During that time, a healed-up Monique got the chance to fight alongside Derek.

 

When Monique and Derek saw each other for the first time, it was love at first sight.

 

The two quickly fell in love, making for one incredible battlefield-based love story; a story that eventually became a well-known multi-billion-dollar critically-acclaimed blockbuster movie called "Burning Love". As an interesting factoid, during this same time, while the lovers were fighting the Soltans, Derek told Monique that being called a 'Feu-Follet' was the equivocal of being called a floating candle light, as far as he was concerned; he considered her more like a 'conflagration'. As a result, Monique, who always considered her highest power mode to be that of a 'conflagration', changed her codename to 'Conflagration'.

 

Eventually, the Knights of Nola and Firebird's forces caused the Soltans to retreat from the Louisiana region, but not before they launched dozens of thermo-nuclear missiles designed to decimate a few hundred square miles of the populated cities. Thanks to a quickly created 'win-win' devil's deal with a few of New Orleans' criminal factions, Firebird and Conflagration were able to use criminally reverse-engineered biotech equipment that would allow them to remotely shutdown and disarm the missiles. Thanks to their actions, none of the missiles exploded or went off. Instead, most of them crashed to the ground where military authorities eventually collected up...well, at least, 'most' of the missiles. To this day, it's still believed that as least two Soltan Thermo-Nuclear missiles still missing, most likely in the inaccessible bayou areas; areas even Cajuns don't like to tread; at least, that's the rumor.

 

Once the Soltans evacuated from the South Eastern United States, Monique joined Derek in taking down the Soltans up and down the Midwest and back up to Detroit. Several months from the start of the invasion, the Soltans were finally chased off Earth for good.

 

After Earth's own liberation, both Derek and Monique helped in rebuilding communities and provide some law and order assistance to the authorities in both Detroit and New Orleans. Whatever legal issues Monique had regarding her incarceration were quickly dropped and expunged by the Louisiana District Attorney (DA), and as such, Monique now had a clean record showing no official criminal activity.

 

Monique, during the invasion, was fiery and emotional and sometimes a bit more of a vigilante.  After the invasion, thanks to Derek's guidance and patience, Monique was able to 'reign in her emotions' and learned how to become a better, more stable person...although, at times, she still gets emotional and 'fired up' about things. They married quickly and had a massive televised wedding that equated to a royal wedding...but with more of a 'Cajun' theme to it. Monique also became pregnant not long after, resulting in more pregnancies and giving birth to a total of one boy and three girls.  She loved her children and officially retired from being a superhero and freedom fighter (even though she did help others until her kids were school aged). She went on to become a fantastic mother. Much to her delight (and surprise), all of her children also had at least a variant of mutant-based fire powers, all developing usually at puberty. She not only helped to raise the kids, but taught them to use their powers safely and humanely, as well as teach them focus, humanity and responsibility. She was responsible for raising one of the most unique families one could ever expect to have.

 

During this same time, her husband, Firebird, had created a new life-saving equipment and facilitation company called "Firebirds, Inc.". She became the Public Relation Officer and, over time, became a working mother and superhero to boot. She was considered one of the most famous superhero mothers ever and gained international acclaim from women rights, family advocacy and minority organizations alike.

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With Firebirds, Inc., Derek and Monique eventually brought their trained children into the field to use their powers, skills and knowledge to learn how to help others and be raised as true superheroes. Some organizations and nations disliked having children put into harms way. When the Superhero Registration Act (SRA) came into international law a few years ago, the children were give exemptions since they had already met all of the registration and training criteria required and set forth in the SRA.

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On one particular Firebirds, Inc. mission a few years ago, a young black pubescent teen male exhibited out of control mutant fire powers. The powers weren't powerful per se, however, the boy had no idea how to turn them off and was freaking out about them, fearful he was going to hurt someone with them. The teen's name was Ronald 'Ron' Reese and had been in and out of foster homes and children protective services since he was found abandoned on the steps of a Detroit firehouse and initially placed in a state-run orphanage. Monique took the call to help Ron, and thanks to Monique's fire resistance powers, she was able to calm him down and teach him to turn off (and eventually 'on') his powers.  Not long after saving Ron, Monique discovered that the state had incarcerated Ron as an adult for 'non-registration' and 'illegal use of his powers' and 'endangering the citizenry'. Monique got the family organization's lawyers and went to bat for Ron, getting him out of the charges 100%. As a result, Monique saw a bit of her younger, wilder self in Ron and as such, with Ron's acceptance, she adopted him into the Adams family, renamed to Ronald 'Ron' Jacob Adams, a boy who would eventually learn to use his street-smart skills and his newly honed powers as the next new teen superhero, 'Gunfire'. Although the SRA still doesn't consider Ron as 'exempt', they have instead created a new category of 'Superhero Guardianship' to the SRA just to accommodate the Ron, the Firebirds and a very lawyered-up mama bear (Monique AKA Conflagration). Ron, for the most part, loves his new family, but at times, he feels like the black sheep of the family and thanks to his (according to him) 'underwhelming' powers, he's taken to using specialized energy guns to make his 'cool' name of 'Gunfire' roll with his street cred.

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Today, Monique AKA Conflagration, is more heavily involved with the superhero side of the business and Firebirds team, taking time to finally get her body's figure back in shape and once again pose for the paparazzi and glamour magazines while still also being a mom to teenagers and the PR lead for the company. Monique is the matriarch of the family, and as such she makes the rules, whether they are right or wrong. Derek AKA Firebird, her husband, is more involved with the day-to-day business dealings, however, of late, he has started teaching his oldest son, Frenel AKA Fireblaze, whom he hopes to groom to take over the family business in the next 10 years. Monique is a celebrity is her own right and has been on hundreds of talk shows, interviews, movies and TV series. She has her own agent, and herself, is worth upward of $50 million in Conflagration product revenue (to include dolls, perfumes, clothing lines, makeup and dietary food programs), appearances and book and movie deals.  From being a jailed fire-powered mutant bad girl to becoming an international celebrity,  superhero mother and entrepreneur, Monique has indeed come a long way.

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