Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El stopped when she reached around five hundred feet directly above the warship. Her four smaller wings easily kept pace with the still-moving ship as her flare ended, and she gazed down at her handiwork. She'd—hopefully—crippled the ship's main cannons, their barrels lying on the deck in front of them, and they hadn't moved or fired since. That should keep the Wirockian ship safe, assuming the Pilish gave up the chase.

Which they hadn't done yet. Despite her warning.

Time to make my point clear.

Even with soldiers scrambling across the deck like a swarm of ants, their rifles lifting to aim in her direction, El took her time to ignite a bow of blue flame in one hand. Distant bangs sounded out below her, but she barely bothered doing more than lazily curving left and right as she followed above the ship. It was already difficult to hit a moving target, and one straight above? No, she wasn't worried.

They should be, though.

Bow in hand, El drew back her other arm, an arrow of blue flame to match the bow quickly taking form. Maybe the soldiers below could make out the shape of her ignition, or maybe they were just generally nervous about what was coming, but more than half of them dove for cover. The remaining brave souls continued to pull the triggers of their handheld weapons. Pistols and rifles spat flashes of light, smoke, and metal projectiles into the air so quickly, it was a wonder they didn't rain back down on their own heads. But, those were the biggest guns the troops could deploy, apparently, with the deck-mounted weapons all unable to aim above the ship.

El let the arrow build a second longer, took aim at her first target, and then released her hold. Like a lightning bolt of blue flame, the arrow streaked down from the sky—soldiers anywhere even close to where she aimed diving for cover—and hammered into the top of one of those medium-sized, deck-mounted weapons.

WHANG, the metal simultaneously cracked and shattered beneath the devouring cold of her attack, a hole big enough El could reach inside instantly forming, while frost crawled out along the rest of the cannon. The pistols and rifles were a threat to the people on the Wirockian ship—sure—but they wouldn't be enough to stop the ship on their own. No, the Pilish would need the deck-mounted weapons if they hoped to have a chance to stop Tas and his people from escaping.

A chance El wasn't going to give them.

Another draw, another arrow, and another of the secondary cannons found itself with a wide hold punched into it. By the third cannon, the Pilish had caught on to what she was doing—ignoring their soldiers, for all intents and purposes—and more swarmed out to open fire on her. Sailor after sailor streamed out of narrow doors all along the main structure of the boat—Just how many people are on this thing?—and metal projectiles filled the air.

By this point, the bullets actually were falling back down on their own heads, and El spotted more than one soldier drop to the deck with a bloody wound. For El's part, she stopped trying to dodge—she was just as likely to run herself into shots with how many were zipping through the air—and fired her next arrow. Frost armor flashed blue when the occasional errant bullet hit her, but at that range, it didn't even have enough force to make her flinch. She got hit three more times as she struck the remaining secondary cannons on the front of the ship, and by that point, somebody below must've realized their efforts were futile.

Shouts were echoing across the deck to "Hold your fire. Hold your fire, damnit!"

El let one more arrow fly—disabling one of the guns on the back of the ship for good measure—then lowered her bow to her side. Below her on some kind of observation platform near the windowed room she'd spotted earlier, a man in a crisp uniform stood with his arms crossed and eyes locked on El. That'd been the man who shouted for everybody to hold their fire, and from the way the other soldiers deferred to him—not to mention the amount of medals on his chest—he had to be the captain.

Letting her bow fizzle out in her hands, El slowly lowered herself down towards the ship, though she kept an eye on the trigger fingers of the soldiers. She'd give them a chance, but if just one fired at her… well…

"You attacked my ship," the captain said as El got to within fifty feet of him, the aforementioned ship slowing in the water.

Giving up the chase? Good.

"Technically, you attacked mine first. Self-defense," El replied.

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"You're Firestorm."

"I am."

"Why are you here?"

"I think we just discussed that. Self-defense," El said.

The man's lips pressed together into a tight line at El's flippant response. Had she spent too much time around Tas these last few days?

"You've slowed down," El went on more seriously. "And as long as you don't continue the pursuit of the other ship, I'd say our business here is done."

"Why are you helping them? The deserters," the captain asked. "It's none of your business."

"It's not, really," El agreed. "But they asked."

The captain unfolded his arms and slapped his hands down on the railing in front of him. "Deserters!" he repeated. "They're criminals. I'm sure even you Firestorm don't allow that. They need to be brought in to face justice."

"First off, to be a deserter, I'm pretty sure you'd need to be a member of a military force, which most of the people on that ship aren't," El said, not bothering to play dumb. The captain either knew about the Pilish refugees definitively, or suspected strongly enough any future Wirockian ships were already in danger. It didn't serve her any purpose to try and hide the fact from him. "Secondly, while desertion can be a serious offense, it's not always as serious as the reason for the desertion."

The Pilish captain froze at El's words, his eyes dipping down to glance at the broken cannons on the deck.

Hrm. Are those Screamers? Does he have civilians chained up to the guns to fire?

Flames sparked in El's palm, and she almost dove down to the deck to cut her way through to find out. If she did that, though, she'd be committing to a real fight with the soldiers on the ship. So far, she'd managed not to kill anybody, and if she could keep it that way, she would. Besides, considering what Tas said, it was more likely it was willing sailors powering the cannons.

"What did they tell you?" the captain finally asked.

"Just a few things I plan on investigating myself after a small detour," El said.

"This isn't your country. Not your business," the captain repeated, his teeth practically grinding as he spoke. One single Firestorm had just brought his entire ship to its knees, basically, so it was no wonder he was struggling to keep his temper in check.

"No, it's not," El also repeated her earlier words, but held up a hand to prevent him from speaking again. "But," she said more softly, "I hear you're having a rough time with monsters from the sea, and I can understand all too well the feelings of desperate circumstances.

"I'm hoping we can work together to make your shores safe again, though we'd have to be sure the citizens were safe from all threats."

The captain's eyes quickly widened and then narrowed at the implications of El's words. "More Firestorm? And, you'd help us against the seawyrms?"

"Possibly," El said. Burn it, I'm not a diplomat. I should get Nidina over here to talk to this guy…

"We won't pursue the des… the passengers on the other ship," the captain said. "After your visit to my ship, we couldn't handle any problems we may come across in the open water."

El held her tongue from pointing out they shouldn't have shot at them in the first place, and instead nodded as patiently as she could manage. "That's probably for the best."

"Then, if that's everything…" the captain said, his tone a clear dismissal to El.

Huh, I just took his ship apart with my bare hands, and he still thinks he can tell me to shove off? No, it's fine, El. Swallow your pride, she told herself. Twice. Then she forced a smile onto her face, the blue flames seriously sparking on her right hand and climbing to her elbow like a glove. The captain's gaze darted to that hand, and he swallowed slowly while a drip of sweat ran down the side of his face.

"Thank you for your time, captain. I hope we won't be seeing each other again soon," El said, then spun and shot away towards the Wirockian ship.

Her destination looked to be about a mile off, and El took the opportunity to angle higher into the sky to get a better view. Last thing she needed was a second Pilish ship sneaking up while she was distracted with the first. The sun now sat half-hidden by the horizon, spilling a river of molten glow across the sea in front of it, with night creeping in from the other side. Light bloomed from a fort town along the mostly-dark coast, while everything else fell into shadow.

I sure hope that's the light of a normal, still populated town, and not from the flames of invasion. El made a quick mental note of the approximate location of the fort in her head. The Firestorm members could do a quick sweep to see how other forts were doing when they came back. The more they knew about the state of the nation, the more they'd be able to convince the brass into hopefully helping the people out.

Without anything else to draw the eye along the coast, El turned her attention back to the sea, simply enjoying the somewhat terrifying vastness of it. There, between the two ships, only small waves crawled along the surface, while just below, a line of what looked like sparkling diamonds carved beneath.

That's a big school of fish. I wonder what kind of…

Bang.

El's head snapped up at the familiar sound of gunfire, and she whirled around in the air. Had those Pilish decided to try taking a shot at her after all?

Bang. Bang.

No, something was wrong. Those gunshots weren't coming from in front of her—from the Pilish warship—they were coming from behind her.

And the only thing with guns in that direction…

"El, you've got to get back," Laze's voice suddenly came over the communicator. "Hangnails are boarding the ship from every direction!"

Burn it! El twisted back the way she'd been going, cursing herself for slowing at all to sightsee, then flared her wings. Ahead of her, in the growing darkness of the setting sun, flaming wings and swords swept around the Wirockian ship, while faint bangs echoed across the water.

"I'm coming," she said.

And hoped too many wouldn't die before she arrived.