Young Flame

I’d love to say I’ve thought this through, but the truth is my plan isn’t so much a plan as it is an idea. An idea that might be impossible to attempt while Kalma and Tore knock each other across the land.

There’s no point in chasing them; I’ll never keep up. So I settle with putting distance between myself and my team and hope for an opportunity to present itself.

The battlefield hardly looked like anything but a muddy wasteland even before the duo began their fight, but now it doesn’t even look real. All flora had long since been wiped clear by artillery bombardment, leaving pockmarked land. Despite the damage, the hilly terrain remained the same. Now? The landscape has been flipped upside down. It’s impossible to imagine what it might have looked like before.

The earth is carved away in unnaturally smooth valleys and pits, between them are craters and fissures. The ground shakes beneath my feet, and I watch on as the land Remus and I were stuck on finally crumbles into the hole Kalma made.

Despite the initial attack only creating a few dozen metre wide opening, the amount of land that has fallen has to be near five kilometres. The depression in the earth takes up all my vision to the south. Just what is the limit to Kalma’s decay? The sinkhole is hardly shallow, nearly as deep as it is wide, and the earth only continues to crumble.

None of her other attacks have been near as damaging as the one that caused this void in the earth, so we can probably be glad she hasn’t used it more than the once.

Tore’s giant body flies over my head, pelting me with a wake of intense wind before he lands in the deep hole. I realise too late where exactly that puts me; right between Kalma and her target. The wave of decay brushes past me before I can even turn to look.

Her power breaks through the yellow ethereal flames I have shrouding myself without resistance, removing them from existence. Not a single step away, the earth has evaporated. The new valley cuts down into the pit. Any closer, and I would be dead.

I gulp, both from the immensely close call, and the knowledge that my less intense ethereal flames won’t protect me from an actual attack from Kalma. Of course, it was too much to hope, but I hoped, regardless.

Tore leaps out of the sinkhole, passing me and blowing away the thick layer of dust. The ursu grapples Kalma, but his fingers just pass through without resistance, her body dispersing in dust before reforming behind each digit. Tore’s momentum keeps him shooting through the air, but he’s able to swing an arm around for a back-hand swat that sends Kalma crashing to the earth.

Without leaving the surface, Tore rushes Kalma. Rather than climbing out of the hole Tore’s strike buried her within, she simply appears out of the nearby dust. Casually, she watches the incoming giant. Each step brings him hundreds of metres closer.

Like what Kalma did with the metal before, she creates a cage of stone around the ursu in mid sprint. The rock blows away as easily as air, but Kalma has already dissolved to dust. Tore stops, looking around for her.

When I spot her, I know it’s now or never.

She materialises from the dust a hundred metres above. Her body defies gravity as she spins. Slow for now, but if I don’t act immediately, it’ll be too late.

I don’t hesitate. The inscription orb rockets forward, pushed by as much physical flame as I can output at once. Any of my flame that gets caught in the blast is without doubt going to be obliterated, but I can’t afford to not put in everything.

The orb carries through the air between Kalma and Tore just as she unleashes that massive conical blast of decay down on his head. I expected it, but the pain of losing so much inner flame at once is excruciating. Leaving it physical only makes it worse.

But… it works. The orb sucks in much of Kalma’s decay wave and my white flames come out in its stead. The world bathes in fire.

The flames continue downward with the same speed as Kalma’s blast, vaporising stone as it descends thousands of metres beneath the earth’s surface. I can feel them all, and it’s euphoric. The immense power flowing through these flames is unbelievable. Far too much for me to absorb. Thankfully, I don’t need to; I only need them for this fight.

“What are you doing?” Kalma’s irritated voice reaches me. “You think this will help you?”

I feel the flames move against my will. Kalma pulls my fire up through the earth, bubbling away rock and stone as white flames rise to the surface. It is still Kalma’s energy powering the blaze, so of course she has some control over them.

But I’m an áed. Not even Kalma can strip me of my connection to fire.

I spread every sliver of focus I can into the flames, and tear back control. She fights me, not wanting to admit defeat to someone so obviously lesser to her, but it’s a losing battle.

The ground melts around us. My feet sink. A wide pool of lava forms over the surface, growing hotter each moment she resists. Molten rock flows along the misshapen landscape, creating glowing rivers that fill into both the sinkhole and the new pit created with a mix of my flames and Kalma’s energy.

I know I’ve won when she resorts to inflicting decay over my flames. She intends to do the same as when we first met; inflicting pain so I give up without resistance. But that won’t work this time. Before she can eat through even a portion of my blaze, I force every last bit of it to transition to ethereal. Suddenly, her basic decay has no effect on me.

Kalma shouts in rage. Her tail flicks a wave of power through my flames, but even that hardly affects me. I nudge my fire, and it needs no prompting to explode. The white flames, as compressed as they already are, experience an immense pressure deep beneath the earth. A mighty column shoots into the air through the hole in the earth, overwhelming Kalma in an instant.

Fire spreads from horizon to horizon, swathing everything in intense heat and scorching light. It is overwhelming to my senses. I can feel all that fall within the blaze. Remus, Jav and Grímr stand in awe, my flames leaving only them unmarred by the heat. Even while ethereal, my flames are hot enough to melt anything they come across.

Well, everything besides Tore and Kalma.

I’ll admit I relish in a bit of satisfaction upon feeling my team’s gazes. But disappointingly, they snap themselves out of it and continue moving away. I shake my head. No, it’s better they keep focused, as should I.

My body bathes in an intense blast of decay, but I remain mostly unharmed. I wasn’t about to leave my form as the only section of my flame unchanged. I, too, have become as ethereal as I can push myself. The decay still affects me, unlike my inner flame, but it is hardly worth concern.

Kalma is furious.

It’s quite the contrary sight; no longer does she remain calm and aloof, laughing as others fight around her. Now, there’s no sign of any humour in her eyes. They hold nothing but anger, and I couldn’t be happier.

Her presence presses down on me, but it’s all she can do. She glares, a terrifying sight on such a powerful creature… had her attack not just failed. I smirk at her. An action that might not be the smartest, as her eyes narrow dangerously.

Kalma spins in the air again, ready to unleash another blast, my way this time. I don’t have the orb to convert her energy, and I know this attack is far stronger than her others, so even with the immaterial flame that makes my body, will I be okay? I don’t know.

Thankfully, Kalma loses her opportunity. In her blind fixation on me, she completely ignores Tore. The ursu slams into her, tearing her out of her stationary position. In one smooth motion, Tore rips her chest from her lower torso.

He tosses her connected legs and tails far past the horizon, but holds what remains of her upper body tight. As he falls back to the earth, he throws her into the lava below. She doesn’t have time to do much more than impact the surface before Tore’s fist crashes down on her.

My flames permeate the lava, so I can feel intimately as the strength of his blow solidifies the molten rock, despite remaining far beyond its melting temperature. The solidified lava sinks, taking Kalma with it.

As much as I’d love to believe this is the end of her, I know that hope is too optimistic. Plus, I can already feel her decaying within the magma pit.

I jump on Tore’s back, nestling myself beside his massive sword. The giant ursu’s feet ever so slowly sink into the lava, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. Tore’s attention is instead on me. His head twisted back to look at me with a raised eyebrow that I just know he’s asking, what are you doing?

“Ignore me and keep beating her up as you’ve been doing,” I say, getting comfortable. “I’ll protect you from her decay.”

I’d prefer to sit back and let them fight it out without me, only shrouding Tore in protective flame from a distance, but even with this intense white firestorm that spreads as far as I can see, Kalma will simply take the fight elsewhere. By tying myself to Tore, I can make sure my flames follow and protect him no matter how far the battle takes us. Unfortunately, that means putting myself in the most dangerous position, but that’s a risk I have to take.

As long as Kalma doesn’t have any hidden attacks greater than that spin blast, I’ll be fine.

Kalma walks out of thick dust layered air, completely unharmed, as if she was never wrenched in half. “You know, I would have been fine to leave you both to your fate, but waiting for the Anatla will be far too unsatisfying.” Her eyes harden. “I really hate people getting in my way.”

A blast of energy slams through us, my flames doing their job and preventing the decay from eating into Tore. I peek over the ursu’s shoulder, only to find Kalma missing. Another wave collides with us from behind. I turn to the source, but before I can, Kalma appears from dust off to the side. Her tails whip forward before her body disperses again.

Her pace picks up and soon she’s teleporting around us and striking out a dozen times every second. It’s an intense experience and even with the added protection from my flames, I still feel woozy.

What is Tore doing? He’s simply standing here, taking the attacks head on. I’m glad he’s impressed by my ability to stop her decay, but I’d rather he didn’t leave us in the epicentre of her attacks.

My body jerks upon Tore’s sudden movement. Only with my flames engulfing everything do I know that we’ve crossed a hundred metres in an instant. Within Tore’s clenched fist, is Kalma. Blood trickles from her eyes and the corner of her mouth. At least it does before she decays into nothing within his grasp.

Tore inspects his hands, covered in my flame and no more damaged than before. He hums in satisfaction, but not before we are hit with another of Kalma’s attacks from above. The lava covered in white fire no longer dissolves, protected as it is.

Tore reaches his hand back over his shoulder, and I have to wonder if he’s trying to grab me. His hand lands on the hilt of the blade he hasn’t used since he showed up. Does he finally intend to use it?

“Keep the blaze dense. I care not for myself; prioritise my sword.”

I do as he says and coat the blade with as dense flame I can manage as he pulls it from the straps on his back. With how far-spanning this Kalma-gifted inferno is, there’s no need to worry about running out of energy to keep the ursu protected as well, so he gets just as dense a coating.

Belatedly, I realise Kalma hasn’t reappeared in the past few seconds. Looking around, I can’t miss the massive accumulation of dust in the air above. The sky, both the blue and the night, disappears behind a thick curtain as swathes of the decay remnants rise high.

At once, it all materialises. The thin light that broke through the thick dust no longer breaches; everything is shrouded in shadow. I’d realised it back when Kalma recreated the metal of Ankor’s chains; She can recreate what she decays. Only I never thought she’d be able to do so on such a large scale.

Kalma has created a mountain to block out the sky.

Of course, there would be no point doing such a thing if it weren’t intended to kill us. The mountain falls without delay. Long before it reaches my inferno, the bottom surface glows with heat as it gains speed.

It falls slowly, and although it is incredibly wide, I don’t think we would have too much issue running out of the way, but I feel that leaving such an enormous mass to crash into the earth will be catastrophic. Tore holds his blade in front of him, the massive chunk of metal appearing far too small in his grip, and yet he still wields it in a way I can only describe as affectionately.

Looks like Tore is of the same mind; we need to destroy that before it hits the ground.