Young Flame

The wave of decaying air slams into Tore. His raised arms take the brunt of the blow, but his body is still encompassed by Kalma’s all consuming power.

Even as the blast continues on to destroy much of the land behind him, Tore stands tall, hardly affected by the decay effect which ended Ankor’s life in an instant. A thin powdered dust wafts off his heavy arms, but he remains whole.

Kalma stands with wide eyes. Her grin stripped clean off her face. She bares her teeth and takes a step back, flicking both tails forward. The air around each ripples as two new waves of power shoot forward, combining their strength on their path toward Tore.

The giant ursu doesn’t stand to take it again. He pivots to the side before rushing forward with speed that should be impossible for one so massive. It’s hard to even focus on his movements with how fast he bursts forth, but somehow, I manage.

Tore punches away from me, yet the crushing power still sends a wave of pressure through my chest. Kalma barely dodges. Her jaw clenches as a hurried step takes her out of the path of the fist thicker than her torso.

Unfortunately for her, she cannot avoid the second attack. Tore’s other fist collects her square in the face. Kalma’s head gives no resistance. It annihilates as her body rips through the air, leaving only a booming crack of thunder in her wake. Tore doesn’t wait around, he bounds after her already distant figure. She can’t even hit the ground before he slams into her again, sending her crashing into the earth with even more force.

The world groans in complaint. Wind whips around us as the earth shakes beneath my feet.

I snap myself from my stupor and rush to Remus’ side. The strange metal cage pins him tightly to the earth. My flames are quick to engulf it. I should be able to free him from his cage, but even with my candescent flame, the metal is resistant, so it won’t be quick.

Grímr has already dug himself out of the earth, the metal boulder pinning him having already been tossed to the side.

“Grímr. Can you find Jav?” I say.

The portian stares toward the battle in the distance, each blow shared bounds through the distance like they occur right next to us. It’s hard enough for me to stand upright with the amount of wind that blows through me with each thunderous explosion, so I can’t imagine what it would be like for the tiny volan. Grímr doesn’t reply, but does as asked. He flies toward where Jav crashed, sticking low to the ground and keeping an eye on the duo of incomprehensibly strong beings.

I turn to watch, only to see Tore barrelling through the air. His body smoking with the familiar sign of decay. Despite his initial success at blocking her attack, it seems he’s not completely immune to the effect of her power. Tore lands on his feet near a thousand metres away, the impact flattening the surrounding earth. Before he can launch himself after Kalma again, she appears above.

Kalma curls into a tight ball and spins in place, gaining speed with each rotation. At once, she unwinds. Her tails flick out, augmented by the angular momentum and disintegrate as they fire off a wave of power. The tails recover quickly, but the same cannot be said for anything else in her path.

The blast slams over Tore, encapsulating the ursu in a cone of Kalma’s power. He doesn’t remain in sight long; the ground beneath him vanishing. A jolt runs through the earth beneath my feet as Tore leaps out of the hole. He collides with Kalma, sending her flying over Remus and my heads. Tore himself has a dangerous amount of dust falling off him. It clears enough for bloody gashes over much of his upper body to become visible.

A tremor runs through me as Kalma impacts the ground, but it doesn’t calm after a moment. Instead, the quaking beneath my feet only grows. I grab a hold of Remus’ cage — which I’ve almost melted through — and hold tight as the earth continues its shuddering.

Despite my grip, a sudden feeling of weightlessness overcomes me. It only lasts a moment before the opposite happens and I feel crushed. A thunderous rumble overwhelms everything as the ground beneath me slants. The very earth itself tilts toward the hole Kalma made.

Looking around, I see we are now within a depression in the earth. Thousands of metres of earth now sliding toward a central pit of vacant earth. I only keep my feet because of the training Bunny encouraged me to do whenever I could… and the metal bars holding Remus down.

I need to hurry and melt the metal. Kalma’s attack must have wiped out an immense amount of stone beneath our feet. It’s like experiencing the Titan all over again; nowhere I stand is safe. Each second I take, the faster our foothold falls, and the closer we are to being buried alive.

Movement catches my eye, and I watch as the inscription orb rolls past us, speeding up as the new slope continues to become more steep. Acting on impulse, I send out a rope of fire to catch it, and pull it into my hands. Some of my white swirls into orbit around the orb, but Kalma doesn’t control the orb this time, so I can take my flames back with ease.

We can’t stay here. The fight between these two monsters is tearing the world apart. All it will take is a stray attack, or simply the secondary effects those attacks inflict on the surroundings, and we’ll be dead.

I can no longer see Grímr past the border of our sloped earth. All I can do is hope he and Jav are fine. For now, there’s nothing I should focus on other than freeing Remus and getting us to safety… well, somewhere that isn’t sliding into a pit who knows how deep.

Through the continual rumbling of the earth, a single clap reverberates. The sound clear. A grey mist spreads out, blanketing the sky as far as I can see. Thin dust particles fall around us. At first, nothing seems to happen, but as time goes on, a pricking sensation appears and intensifies into an all-encompassing pain.

I’m not the only one to feel it, either. Remus is good at hiding his pain, but his outer membrane is clearly dissolving. Both the air and rock around us experience the same. Whatever Kalma has done, it has covered a wide-spanning area in her decay. This can’t be an attack on Tore; it would be pointless with the resistance he’s shown. Is she really that spiteful that she would attempt to kill my team even while preoccupied with Tore?

I need to get Remus out. The metal restraints are so close to melting, but I don’t know if I can free him before the decay grows any more intense. My flames spread over his body to protect him, but that only gives the decay more area to eat into my flames.

Each second I spend burning into the metal, the pain through my flames only grows more agonising. I can stand it when fighting the Viisin because I only need to handle the pain for an instant before they’re dead, but this is different. Constant. Deeper.

In a moment of weakness, I transition my flames into ethereal. The relief is immediate, but I fully expect the decay to breach through and take hold on Remus, so despite how difficult it is to do so, I gather myself and return my flames.

The pain that comes is somehow worse after my short break, but strangely, Remus’ skin is no more damaged after I let him take the brunt of the decay.

Is it possible that my incorporeal flames still stop the decay even though they don’t interact? I really want to let go again, and see if it’s possible, but testing on Remus is not something I want to do.

While I continue to burn away the last of the metal clamping down on Remus, I convert only the flames around my body to their ethereal state, and am delighted to find I barely feel the effect of decay.

Immediately, the both of us are encapsulated in my non-physical fire. Free from the agony of Kalma’s power, I can finish cutting through the binding metal. Before I completely sever it, Remus flexes, snapping the red-hot material.

Not waiting a second, I cling to the dohrni’s head and jet us out of the massive sinking pit. We still had a bit of time until the land we were stuck on would crash any further down, but there’s something far more important on my mind.

“We need to get to Grímr and Jav, now!”

Remus, to his credit, is quick on the uptake. With the added thrust from my flames, he’s able to skip us along the ground in the right direction.

The smoking form of Grímr is unmissable, curled up as he is. His inscriptions glow bright through the dust, but it is clear his body is suffering from the effects. Long before we reach them, my flames have already crossed the distance, covering the alicanto body in my protection.

As my fire spread over his body, I find Jav pressed tight beneath Grímr. The volan is mostly unharmed by the decay, but he is not without injury. A massive gash runs along his arms and chest, likely from the horrid crash he endured.

Before Remus and I can reach them, a sudden explosion of air blows us back. Tore crashes between us, his massive legs lodged within the earth with a fissure newly torn across the surface. The crevice travels almost perfectly perpendicular to the location of my team.

I catch Tore glancing our way before returning his sight above. The earth didn’t crater as it typically has upon his landings. Can he control the effect he has on the environment? Did he land the way he did so we wouldn’t be hurt?

I don’t even see where she comes from, but in the time it takes to blink, Kalma crashes into Tore. The ursu grapples her with a death grip, but the disproportionate size makes her look like a toy in his grasp. Kalma stands not even a quarter of his height.

Kalma Grins down at Tore, whose hands smoke simply holding her. “So? Not going to attack? Worried about the little ones?” Her gaze moves first to Grímr and Jav, before pivoting to me and Remus.

Kalma’s tails lift as she returns her gaze to Tore. Her smirk only widens. Suddenly, I feel we are in a terrible amount of danger. Tore seems to think the same.

Before she can act, Tore lifts her above him in one hand and pulls back his other. His fist moves too fast to see, but we feel its effects. The shockwave knocks us off our feet and the ground flattens around him.

It is clear from Kalma’s disappearance that he just pelted her far into the sky.

Above, a tiny speck disappears amongst the blue midday sky. Kalma has gone too high to see. I look around, expecting her to reappear at any moment, but she doesn’t. Instead, the sky above darkens. Where Kalma disappeared, the starry night returns, but it is far from natural. The night spreads across the blue sky like a growth of rot. Millions of tendrils reaching out to cover ever more of the sky.

The growth-like night eventually slows to a crawl with a quarter of the sky overhead consumed, but not before piercing the eternal inferno. A single rotten tendril removes all light from the tiny section it covers, cutting the sun in half.

I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. There’s no way Kalma could compete with the eternal inferno. It is impossible. The uncaring entity should be so far beyond anything else to be damaged by even one as strong as Kalma. Whatever this darkness is, it definitely isn’t Kalma.

“You four need to run,” Tore says, not taking his eyes from above.

“Are you insane!” Kalma’s voice cracks through the air like thunder as she barrels down through the air.

Tore leaps to intercept her, knocking her away before she can bring the fight close to my team again.

“Are you trying to doom your people even before the barrier collapses?” Kalma’s voice is clear despite the distance.

While amid her brawl, she shoots worried glances to the new dark patch of sky. To hear her panicking is music to my ears, even if the words themselves concern me. I peer up at the darkness now settled in place above. What exactly is it? What has her so terrified?

I’m pretty sure it’s not the Void Fog. It doesn’t move the same way, and this darkness shows the stars of night, not a pure black.

Whatever it is, it has sent Kalma over the edge in fury. Tore can hardly keep up anymore; her power overwhelms him each time he tries to attack. His thick hide peels in places and blood flows from numerous lesions.

If nothing changes soon, I fear for Tore. He’s our best hope, and if he can’t beat Kalma, then what chance does anyone else?

The feel of smooth metal reminds me of the orb I still hold. I should really take my team and run. The longer we wait around, the more likely we’ll fall victim to either Kalma’s stray attacks or the crumbling landscape.

But what would that achieve? We would only delay the inevitable. Kalma has already shown she’s no longer remaining passive. Should we run, Kalma will hunt us down as soon as she’s done with Tore.

No. I need to stay. It might have a slim chance of success, but if I can support Tore, then it will be worth the risk.

I step away from Remus, leaving my flames shrouding both him and the others.

“Solvei?” Remus grabs my arm with one of his tentacles. “Don’t. They are beyond us.”

I look down at his limb holding me back, curious how it no longer sends my flames roiling in revulsion. Remus seems to misunderstand my gaze and snaps his tentacle away.

“Tore cannot win if this continues.” I look him in the eyes. “I have a plan. Please trust me.”

Remus is silent for a long moment before letting out a frustrated sigh. “Be careful,” is all he says.

I nod and turn away, leaving him to take care of Grímr and Jav. My flames should stick to them and keep them safe from the decay, but they should really get out of the area while they can.

Kalma and Tore continue their fight, uncaring to the damage they inflict upon the world. The sky above remains blemished with night rotting away daylight.

I’ve resolved myself. Either this works and I’ll give Tore a fighting chance, or I’ll die.

Let’s hope I’m lucky.