Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

No bigger than an average eight-year-old child—not including the vicious claws—the little monsters moved surprisingly fast. Obviously some kind of aquatic creature by the webbing on their limbs, along with the visible fins or their backs, they still loped swiftly along. Mainly scampering on two legs, they used their gangly arms and claws to reach forward every few steps and yank themselves ahead. On the stone floor of the tunnel, this resulted in the spine-shivering scratching becoming an almost constant drone.

Already, El counted at least a dozen of the things sprinting in her direction, more rounding the bend ahead every few seconds. Her wings had covered half the distance between her and the closest beast, but with how many there were, some would get by.

"Nidina, need you up front," El said, a second sword igniting in her other hand at the same time. "Dayne, keep an eye out back there."

"On my way," Nidina responded without questioning why she was needed.

BANG cracked behind her, and blue blood exploded out of the shoulder of the lead beastie, dropping it to the ground in a sucking howl of pain. El flashed right over it, sword snapping out to sever a reaching arm, then dropped her feet to skid along the ground beyond it. Momentum carrying her forward at a sprint, she slashed into the next monster in line.

Three claws came up to parry her first sword—Good luck with…—and succeeded—What the Blaze?—but El didn't let that stop her. Her second sword swept in from the other side, also parried by the impossibly strong claws, but that left the monster open for her kick to crunch into its teeth. An ignition from the heel of her boot for good measure splashed blue flame across the thing, and it fell back with most of its face missing. While it wasn't dead—El didn't have a chance to finish it off—two other monsters loped up to flank her.

Swords low in Wings of the Phoenix, El glanced from one monster to the next, waiting for them to make the next move. Would they try to rush by her? Or, would they…?

Both beasts swept in at her simultaneously, claws raking to catch anything they could. One, two, on each side, El batted aside the attacks while taking a single step back. Fast, but wild. As soon as her front foot touched down, she swept her righthand sword across, flaring the blade as it went to insert a screen of blue flame between her and her enemy on that side. That done, she parried a second attack on her left, then used the free second on her right to stab out with Sea of Snakes and Flames.

Claws out of position to attack, one, two, three thrusts punched fist-sized holes in the monster's chest, neck, and head. This one didn't even make a sound as it fell, frost growing around the edges of the wounds, while El spun around to deal with the thing on her other side. She needn't have hurried—the thing was already lying on the ground, the front half of it encased in an ice that had somehow flayed it underneath. It must've tried to charge into the fire-screen. Bad choice.

With those two taken care of, the easy part was done, and the flood of monsters reached her. The snap of gunshots rang out behind, one after the other, bursts of blood showing where every single one of Tas's shots found a home in a creature's body. Claws reached for her, but she parried aside the first, the second, the third… the fourth got through. Sparks of blue flame spat off where her frost armor took the blow, ice crawling up the offending claws, but El ignited her wings and leapt back nonetheless. Despite the power of her protection, she'd felt something through the armor. It wasn't like the monsters were supernaturally strong, but she'd still need to be careful about their claws.

"Enough hits might get through your flame armor," El said quickly into her communicator, the horde already swarming towards her even as another fell to a well-aimed bullet.

"Let's not give them the chance, then," Nidina said, rushing up like a cyclone of flaming blades on El's left.

"Thanks for coming. Infinity pattern," El said, darting ahead and merging her two swords into a single flaming battleaxe. While the two swords worked well when she was on her own—good offense and defense both—having Nidina at her back meant she could focus a bit more on doing some damage. Whirling around with the weapon in both hands—the axe leaving a trail of blue flame in its wake—El smashed the two-foot-long axeblade into the upraised claws of the closest beast.

Even though the axe didn't actually have weight since it was made of pure flame, it still hit like it did, punting the monster straight back into one of its fellows, and then crunching them both into the wall.

"Rotate," El said calmly, chasing the monster she'd just hit to the side. Behind her, Nidina flowed up to cover her back, and El focused her strength on the next swing. This time, without the claws getting in the way, her brutal slash cut the monster in half, and tore a nasty chunk out of the one behind it. As the top half of the dead body slipped off to splat on the floor, El lashed out with a straight kick into the struggling monster still pinned to the wall, and ignited a spike of flame from her boot.

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Straight through where the thing's heart would be, the beast convulsed and spat blood, though its claws managed to rake across El's leg in the exchange. More blue sparks spat off her frost armor, but it was like something had pinched both sides of her calf. Pushing aside the discomfort—it wasn't anything she couldn't deal with—El continued rotating to her left.

As Nidina moved to stay behind her, like two bodies orbiting a central point between them, El's axe swept around to slam into the chest of one of the monsters the other Firestorm had allowed to pass. Ribs parted and collapsed at the same time, the small creature lifting off the ground by the force of the blow, before getting tossed lifelessly aside. From there, El got her first good look at how things were going with the column of refugees she'd rushed ahead to protect.

Tas and Laze made up the next line of defense, with Laze taking point, a sword and shield combination intercepting any monsters that made it that far. Behind her, Tas had a pistol in each hand, expertly weaving his shots around Laze to pick off—or at least wound—whatever got past El and Nidina. A flash even further back from Tas showed Macer wasn't standing idly by either, her rifle at her shoulder as she pounded out shot after shot. So far, nothing had made it past Laze in the back, though Nidina and El were reasonably only able to occupy half of the horde washing over them.

Speaking of…

With the column of refugees safe for the moment, El continued swiveling to her left to swing her axe back and forth in quick succession. The nearly weightless weapon—despite being almost as big as she was—filled the side of the tunnel with terrible blue flames. While claws managed to parry one strike on her left, the cross-slash to the right sheared through another monster's leg as it tried to slip by. Blue blood spilled across the floor in a gush, the monster stumbling behind it, but El let it be and slammed the axe back into the first monster that'd parried her.

Again, the claws came up to block her attack—BANG—its shoulder erupted, and its whole arm went weak. Fishy panic flashed across the piranha-like face a heartbeat before El's axe tore through it, and she continued her rotation back to the forward-facing position. Though they'd been cutting monsters down non-stop since the first had appeared, there had to be thirty more rushing straight for them.

Let's thin the herd.

As soon as Nidina was safely more behind El than beside her, El cocked back the axe, then swung forward with all her strength. Not just arm-strength, either, but with the full force of her Spark as she flared the weapon. Exploding in size, the weapon suddenly filled the tunnel in a torrent of blue fire. The blade grew to twenty feet in length, and billowed flames above and below. What wasn't cut completely in half was instead practically flayed to the bone by a fire so cold, it shattered the bonds holding things together at the most basic level.

All at once, there was a clear space between El and the nearest monsters—more than thirty feet back—with corpses smoldering blue between them.

"Covering fire," El barked. "Laze, get up here."

No sooner had she spoken the words than Laze and Nidina were both right beside her, flaming bows drawn back and arrows launching forward. The air sizzled and howled as the bolts scorched down the tunnel to punch through a line of stunned monsters. While the other two Firestorm launched one quick blast after another, El drew back her own bow, but held her arrow. Blue flames coiled and thrashed in her hands, each second multiplying the power within.

Sliding her rear foot back, she braced herself, the arrow now the size of a ballista bolt and bucking like a wild horse. Two more red flame arrows lanced through the clawed monsters—though they were starting to move again—but El didn't let it distract her.

I did it before, I can do it again.

Focusing on the raging tornado of flame held in her hands, El imposed her will—her Spark—on it, pulling it in tighter. Stronger. Forcing control over the raging beast of fire, she condensed the flame from raw power into forged ferocity. Only the tiniest licks of flame escaped the El-sized arrow of blue plasma, the very air around it sparkling like it was full of thousands of tiny ice crystals. Frost crawled across mushrooms on both walls within the blink of an eye, then shattered the next.

"El…" Laze said, her voice tight like she was resisting something.

El released her fingers, and the blast—more artillery than arrow—roared forward while the recoil shot her back five feet before she could engage her wings. Ice followed in the arrow's wake, instantly coating the entire tunnel as it plowed down the line of unfortunate monsters. Those it struck broke before they even realized they were frozen, while those it simply passed had their flesh shorn off their bodies by the cutting cold.

And all that devastation was nothing compared to what happened when the arrow finally met something it couldn't simply punch through—namely, the tunnel wall. Perfect, glowing blue, like a cold sun, blossomed from the point of impact, consuming the nearest monsters before continuing to grow.

"Oh, burn it!" El cursed, flaring her wings to launch herself in front of Nidina and Laze as the terrible blue plasma filled the tunnel and expanded straight for her friends. Once again reaching out with her will—and her Spark—El thrust her hands forward, simultaneously igniting a shield from floor to ceiling while taking command of the flames rushing in her direction.

As soon as the blue death reached her forged shield, she felt the connection click in her mind, and she snuffed it out like it was barely a candle. All at once, only the tunnel was left, the walls covered in sparkling ice, while the floor was littered with strange, frozen statues in various horrified poses.

"May've… overdone it a bit there," El mumbled.

"You don't say," Laze deadpanned behind her.