Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El, Laze, and Nidina approached the massive city all together from high above. It was by far the largest single metropolis she'd seen other than Balacin, and even the capital city of Pycrin oddly paled in comparison to this city's splendor.

For one, towers that reached for the sky dotted the city, each of them nearly a thousand feet tall. Large windows, domed roofs, filigreed designs, and magnificent sculptures—though that last part wasn't really surprising—showed the time and care that'd gone into crafting them. Even the smaller buildings looked to be of expert craftsmanship.

And, maybe the most interesting thing—and the one that separated it from Pycrin the most—were the distinct and different sections of the city. Where Pycrin was designed to look like a giant, spreading inferno, with all its buildings shaped like flames and colored in oranges or reds, El spotted at least a dozen diverse areas. Pagodas and steep-sloping roofs dominated a section to the north, while directly ahead of her, narrow towers with bulbous tops sat on the corners of sprawling estates. Further in, there was a district made up of buildings that almost looked like they'd be better called temples than anything else, with massive entryways and wide pillars supporting heavy roofs. The statues in front could easily be believed to be godlike—though El didn't spot an icy human-spider hybrid or the Pyre.

"Seawyrms," Nidina's voice cut through El's gawking like a knife. "A lot of them. Those are probably hangnails too, though it's hard to tell from here."

"Where?" El asked, though as she looked past the architecture, it wasn't really hard to find them. Sapphire scales glinted in the sun where the creatures curled themselves around the tops of some of the tallest towers—How did they even get up there?—or wound their way down the streets. She counted one, ten, twenty… so many, there wasn't even a point to keep counting. The more she looked, the more she spotted. And then there were the hangnails.

Thousands of them. Easily.

But… they weren't fighting anything. The creatures looked to be almost lazily waiting for something, and whatever it was, it was probably related to the huge ring Nidina had spotted. While the impressive towers dwarfed the ring in sheer size, it was probably closer to three hundred feet tall than two, and the band itself had to be thirty feet wide. Dozens of the metal tubes snaked along the roads from all corners of the city—Does each one connect to a line of rings? And does each ring have piles of bodies around it? How many people died for… whatever this is?

Not even bothering to hide themselves with how high up they were in the sky, El took the time to thoroughly observe the scene below—and not just the buildings.

"I don't get it," Nidina said. "What are they doing? Did they already wipe out the Wirockians? Are we too late? Or… are they working together…?"

"I don't know about that last part," Laze said. "But there was definitely a fight here. There's a lot of damage, if you look for it. It's kind of hard to spot—the buildings are well made—but there… and there." She pointed as she spoke, and as El followed her friend's gestures, she spotted blown out walls, smashed roofs, and cratered roads.

"A city this big, there has to be survivors," El said. "Laze is right, signs of fighting, but not nearly enough compared to what we saw in the outer towns. Almost like they… pacified the area and focused their violence elsewhere. Or, maybe this city was actually empty the whole time? Bits and Tas spoke like it wasn't really common to come all the way here. Could the true Wirockians—the ones who built all this—have died out already?"

"They may not have been able to survive in the golem bodies without their Ember," Nidina said. "None of the reports really outline anything after we took it."

"We didn't care about them after we got what we wanted," Laze added quietly.

"Either way, we should…" El started.

"Wait, what's that? Coming in from the north, is that tube… glowing?" Nidina interrupted.

El held off on what she was going to say, and followed Nidina's gesture until she picked out the tube the other woman was talking about. Out of the dozens of metal pipelines snaking their way towards the large ring, only one had what looked like a glowing… something… shooting along inside it. Whatever it was, the light was so bright, it illuminated the tube in a moving spot that zipped down the road and straight for the larger ring.

Nearby hangnails and seawyrms didn't exactly move out of the way, but their collective heads turned at the approach—as if they could feel it coming—then followed its movement as it passed. Within seconds of entering the city, the glowing package was halfway to the ring. Elsewhere, the entire press of monsters turned their attention to the ring as one, the city almost undulating like it was a living thing by how the creatures moved in perfect unison.

And that feeling in El's gut only got worse.

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"I don't think we're going to like this," she said, an instant before the pulse of light reached the base of the massive ring.

No sooner had it vanished within the wide pedestal at the bottom, then golden light—like a sunset—began filling the etchings within the inner, electrum ring. Starting at the base where all the tubes connected, the light spread like wildfire up both sides, illuminating strange characters El had never seen before. Part of her brain registered it as some kind of writing, but just looking at it caused her head to hurt and a building sensation of unease to crawl down her throat and into her chest.

It wasn't just into her chest either, but straight for her Spark. Whatever was happening—whatever that writing was—it was almost anathema to her Spark, making the touch of dual-divinity within her shudder.

Before she had a chance to even look at how it was affecting the other two Firestorm, the glowing script completed, meeting at the top. The moment the lines completed, the empty space within the ring changed. A thin membrane—like a soap bubble—appeared within the ring, while everything else in the city completely stilled. More shimmers of light, small sparks—Actual Sparks?—danced along the sheer film as it grew opaque. Darker and darker, the city through the sheath became first hazy, then vanished entirely.

A deep, vast darkness replaced the scene within the ring. Not black or empty, but full and oppressive. The sensation of vast pressure emanated from the ring, its aura washing out across the city like a tidal wave, then something pushed on the membrane from within. Almost like a hand beneath a sheet, the shape formed and pressed outward, the film stretching as the thing beyond strained against it.

And, since this hand was more than two hundred feet up, whatever it was, it was huge.

A second hand joined the first, though maybe they weren't actually hands, the appendages with digits longer than fingers and seemingly without bone. They pushed and squirmed against the membrane within the ring, bowing the whole thing out to the point El was sure it would burst any second.

Her heart hammered against the inside of her ribs while her Spark quailed as the aura reached her even high up in the sky. Like somebody had taken a pillow and crushed it against her face after tying her down, she couldn't move. Couldn't act.

Stretching, stretching, stretching, the thing beyond the ring struggled for its freedom…

Sputter, one of the illuminated sigils flashed and went out, then another. A collective hiss resounded from the gathered monsters watching the ring as the membrane grew taut, pushing back whatever was trying to force its way out.

Air finally reached El's lungs, and she gasped, the aura receding as another sigil faded, then another and another. Whatever energy had been powering the ring ran out, forcing the membrane back to being flat, the pushing hands turning to beating against the surface. As unyielding as solid stone, the film didn't even shudder beneath the blows, then even those faded as the vast darkness grew light. The blurry city once again appeared through the view of the ring, the image sharpening with every passing second, until the final sigil faded, and the ring was once again empty.

"What the Blaze was that?" Nidina asked, her voice hoarse like she'd just sprinted a solid mile while holding her breath.

"Something very bad," El said. "Did you feel your Sparks…?"

"Quivering," Laze finished. "Like they were terrified of whatever that was. I didn't even feel that when we saw the Stormbearer."

"Yeah, this is way worse than Sol," El said.

"How do we stop it?" Nidina asked.

I don't know if we can, El thought, but immediately crushed that line of thinking. Giving up before even starting wouldn't help anything.

"The big ring is connected to the small rings, right?" Laze said. "The Sparks they're stealing, those have to be the light we saw. If we go back and destroy the rings, they won't be able to gather any more fuel to power the big ring here."

El shook her head. "It's a good idea, but look how many tubes there are. There are multiple rings for each of those, and like where we just came from, they could've already finished. We'd have to search the entire island to find any places they're still sacrificing people. If we went the wrong direction, a pulse could come from the other side to…"

"Another pulse!" Nidina said, pointing to the far side of the city, where a ball of light zipped long the winding tube towards the city.

"Cover me," El said without thinking, flaring her wings and shooting across the sky above the city.

"Cover you where?" Laze asked, but El could feel the two pushing power into their wings to chase after her. They hadn't mastered flaring like she had, so the distance between them quickly grew.

"Destroying the tube," El said, eyes following the tube to look for a spot that wasn't absolutely crawling with monsters. A few hangnails she could probably handle, but if it was swarming with seawyrms, that was a different story. And, she couldn't just drop down by the ring and start cutting there. Sure, that would be the most efficient, but if she cut the wrong tube, she might not stop the incoming package of energy.

Not to mention all of the very sharp teeth and claws immediately around the ring. They'd be on her in a heartbeat.

"Another pulse from the north," Nidina cried. "I'm going for it."

"Laze, watch for…" El started, flaring her wings a second time as the first ended.

"South, I'm on it," her friend said, and El glanced back to see flaming wings heading in opposite directions behind her.

"Remember Tas's sagely advice," El said, turning her attention ahead. "Don't die."

"Same to you," Laze said.

"And try not to be too dramatic," Nidina added.

"We'll see," El said. But, looking at the incoming sphere of light, and her options where she could cut it off, dramatic might be exactly what they needed. Whatever it was that'd been inside that ring looked close to getting out. So close, a single pulse getting through might be enough to let it break the boundary between here and wherever it was.

No, no matter what happened, El couldn't let a single pulse of stolen Sparks reach the ring.

With that thought, a blade of blue flame ignited in her hand, her focus compressing the weapon until the roaring flames solidified into glowing, blue plasma. Then she cut her flare, bent at the waist until she was pointed straight down, and flared again.

The street—and the tube running along it—raced up to meet her.

But, so did the dozens of monsters suddenly looking in her direction.