Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El launched herself into the sky with a powerful flare of her wings, blue flames washing over the sea below her and flash-freezing the water in a wide circle. A hundred feet up in the blink of an eye, she spun to face the distant warship, then cut her first flare and immediately flared again, rocketing off at a ninety-degree angle.

Waves blurred by below her, and she ignited the four smaller wings on her back, then flared a third time as the second one faded. The ship ahead of her grew and grew in her vision, the distance between them shrinking with every passing heartbeat. Cannons sat angled on the deck, their barrels pointed in the direction of the Wirockian ship—and her—with thin smoke still leaking from them.

Despite what her instincts were telling her, she lined herself up directly with the mouths of those smoking cannons, her own mouth going dry as she did it.

They look powerful, but must have a much lower rate of fire than the Guldish golems. When will they…?

The cannon shifted slightly. BOOM!

Shouldn't have even wondered… El's mind raced at the same time she flared a shield on her arm. It wasn't pretty to look at, with barely defined edges and warped in shape, but it was big—almost thirty feet in diameter. And, more importantly, it was thick. Ten feet of solidified blue flame, so cold El left sparkling ice crystals in the air as she continued to speed forward to hopefully intercept…

WHAAAAAAAM, El's forward momentum came to an abrupt and painful halt. Water. Sky. Water. Sky. Water. Sky, they flashed in front of her eyes.

Why is the world spinning?

No, it wasn't the world. She'd been knocked right out of the air, her entire left arm encased in a solid block of ice as she fell within a snowstorm towards the sea below. Despite having the sense to realize what was going on, her body didn't quite respond as quickly. She could feel her wings still ignited on her shoulders, but getting them to do anything was another matter entirely. The collision of her against whatever the Blaze that ship had fired had left her body numb.

C'mon, body! You've been through worse. Er… I guess I should apologize for that… Stop thinking stupid thoughts!

El forced her mind back to the task at hand, everything around her still flipping and flipping and flipping. Worryingly, the sky was definitely getting further away, while the water below grew larger in her vision with every rotation.

Uh… what's going to happen when my wings hit the water? Am I just going to freeze myself into one giant Elcicle? Best not to find out.

Another rotation—and another nerve-wracking look at the water she was plummeting towards—and El threw out every thought beyond regaining control of her wings. The first thing she did was pull her arms in close to her body—a monumental effort since she could barely feel her right one, and her left was weighed down by a huge block of ice. Still, she managed to get them pressed up against her chest—cold—then focused next on her legs. Like her arms, she tucked those in closer to her core, bringing her into almost a fetal position. With less uncontrolled drag in the air, her spinning eased, reducing the vertigo.

Great. How close to the…? OH BURN IT!

The water was right there! Fifty feet, if that, and closing fast. No time for anything fancy, El did was she was best it—overwhelming force. She stretched her body out of the curl, arching her back as the sea raced up to meet her, slicing through the air even faster. C'mon. C'mon!

Thirty feet—she flexed her stomach muscles, forcing her legs to come down against the wind resistance.

Twenty feet—her arms extended down in front of her like she was attempting a push up.

Ten feet—flare!

Blue flames exploded from her shoulder blades and the soles of her feet, funneling a column of flames that shot her skimming along above the water. Another flare from the palms of her outstretched hands—the block of ice on her left hand exploding in the process—managed to keep her from slamming into the surface of the water at breakneck speeds, and left twin trails of thick ice behind her as she zipped above the waves.

In the two-second window she had from the flare keeping her above the water, she flexed the power of her four small wings and pulled herself out of the crazy dive. Leveling off twenty feet above the water, El let out the breath she was holding, and gave herself a solid two seconds to get over the panic of the fall. A flex of her arm shattered what was left of the ice that'd formed when she'd blocked the cannon, and a few good shakes had feeling rushing back to it, then she scoured about for the ship that had burning shot her out of the sky!

There. Barely a quarter-mile straight in front of her, smoke still leaked from the offending barrel, but it hadn't fired again. Along the railing, sailors in uniforms similar to Tas's—at least as far as she could tell from the distance—scrambled to get to the guns along the railings she'd spotted before.

"Sorry, you only get to shoot me down once," she grumbled. Twin swords of blue flame sparked to life, growing from the palms of her hands to extend out to either side of her as she lifted her arms and sped straight for the ship. "Let's see what you've got."

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Flashes spat from three of the smaller guns near the bow of the ship, streaking bolts of light like glowing knives cutting through the air. A ratta-tat-tat echoed distantly, the sound reaching her ears along with the salvo of bullets whistling as they tried to cut her down.

A flare from her left shoulder spun her to the right, deftly dodging the glowing lead shots, but the streams angled to follow. Go ahead and try. With the luminescent knives spread almost fifteen feet apart, part of El wondered if it was even worth it to dodge them, but something about the flow of shots caught her eye, keeping her rolling up and over the strange payload.

What was it that was bugging her? Of course! Nothing Tas or Macer did ever resulted in flaming shots, and El narrowed her eyes the next time she banked under the three streams that couldn't seem to do anything but chase her. Not used to mobile targets, are you? Yes, there, her eyes couldn't keep up with them, but there was definitely something else between the glowing darts.

Has to be the same kind of bullets Tas uses, while the glowing shots must be so they can keep track of where they're actually shooting.

With the shots figured out—and easy enough to stay ahead of—El flared both wings again to rocket ahead while simultaneously leading the gunners around like she had them by the nose. If the three shooters had worked together to try and box her in, they might've been able to catch up to her. Instead, they only reacted to how she flew, their aim always trailing and trying to catch up to her. And, by the time one of them thought to change their tactics, it was already too late—she'd arrived at the ship.

A flare from her foot kicked her upside down as she raced over the rail, sword slashing across to cut cleanly through the rotating barrels of the still-firing gun. A heartbeat later, the soles of her boots hit the deck, skidding along the metal, before she flared her wings and shot towards the second gun that'd been shooting at her. Maybe it wouldn't be able to turn and fire inward—actually, that'd be a pretty stupid design—but she didn't take any chances.

A vicious elbow exploded blood out of the gunner's nose on contact, while her other sword severed the base of the gun, sending the whole mechanism plummeting out of sight beyond the railing. Bang behind, and El instinctively ducked to the side, a line of ice spitting from her frost armor before her wings sent her hurtling at the third gun. A glance to the side showed who'd shot at her, the pistol tracing her movement even as the soldier pulled the trigger a second time.

Body reacting before El could really even process what was happening, her arm was already moving in time for her sword to cut the bullet right out of the air. There was a flash of blue at the impact, and something about that must've been really impressive, because the shooter's jaw practically hit the deck. No time to dwell on it, El shoulder-checked the sailor in front of her hard enough to send him flying to bounce off the railing. A twist brought her feet back under her at the same time her sword arced around in a sweeping uppercut. Deck, railing, and then gun fell into pieces before her blade, and the main bulk of the ship was suddenly in her view.

The huge cannon that'd literally shot her out of the burning sky stood in front of her, the intimidating barrels still pointing towards the Wirockian ship. All across the deck, Pilish soldiers swarmed like ants, some running away from her sudden and brutal assault, while others panicked to draw their weapons. Small-fry like that weren't her concern for the moment, and before one of them even had a chance to take a shot at her, a flare of her wings washed blue flames off the side of the deck.

Like a lightning bolt going in the wrong direction, El shot up at an angle, immediately cutting the flare from one of her wings to send her into a wild spin. Arms in tight but blades extended, she was a flaming corkscrew of destruction as she reached the cannon's twin barrels. Thick and reinforced though the weapons may be, the metal screeched as El passed, before the severed tubes clanged to the deck below.

One down, El took control of her flight a second after clearing the weapon, using her smaller wings to spin her back around as if the air she was standing on was slippery ice. Dozens of handheld weapons aimed at her from below, fingers squeezing triggers in a staccato of bangs, but El was already gone by the time the bullets filled the air where she'd been. For the men and women below, they could probably only keep track of El by the streaks of blue flame she left behind her, and she crashed into the second cannon only a heartbeat later.

With a single sweep of each sword, two more barrels fell to the deck, scrambling soldiers diving to get out of the way of the heavy metal. I hope that's enough to stop them from shooting. The ship still had two more major cannons on the back half of the ship, though, and El flared her wings to leap into the sky again. Halfway up, she spotted a wide room full of people behind large glass windows—eyes wide and faces furious as they watched her—but then she was past. Up and over in an almost gentle arc, bullets cutting through the air behind her—always behind her—and her boots touched down on the top of the third cannon.

Even though this one was facing the entirely wrong direction—back towards shore—who knew what the Pilish could do to get it swung around. With the soldiers almost all at the front of the ship where she'd been, El casually stepped forward and swung her sword down and around. She cut these two barrels almost all the way down at their bases, leaving little more than tiny stumps in their place.

"One more," she said to nobody in particular, the sounds of boots on metal reaching her ears as the soldiers poured around to try and catch up with her. Not that they would make it in time, a small hop with the help of her wings depositing her on top of the fourth and final cannon. One more swing of her sword finished the job just as the first soldier came into view, rifle coming up to take aim at her.

"Stop following us," El shouted at him. "This is your only warning."

BANG, the man pulled the trigger, and something hit El hard enough in the center of her chest for her to take a step back at the same time her frost armor flashed. All around her, the air cooled in an instant, and a fist-sized chunk of ice clunked on the metal beside her feet.

Both El and the Pilish soldier looked from her chest, to the bullet encased in ice, to the rifle in the man's hands. Then he pulled the trigger a second time.

This time, El snapped her wrist out, sword blade flashing to intercept the expected bullet. Another flash as the destructive cold of the weapon devoured the bullet, then El pointed it straight towards the man. She didn't even need to say anything before he dropped his gun and sprinted around the corner and out of view.

"Yeah, I thought so," El said, then flared her wings and shot straight into the sky.