Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

Another quick flare of just her left wing jerked El to the side, evading a cutting stream of compressed water as she went. The air itself seemed to tear at the passing water, but a second flare from her other wing darted her back the way she'd come, under the sweeping jet. At that point, the seawyrm spitting—breathing… whatever it was doing!—water at her couldn't keep up. Vaguely, she heard the sound of chiseling stone as the spray must've carved down through the building beyond her.

She put it out of her mind, focusing on the hangnails lifting their claws in greeting.

El had picked a spot with few seawyrms—only the one hocking at her being close enough to worry about, for the moment—but it was still swarming with the smaller monsters. With only a split second before she reached them, El thrust her free hand down in front of her, palm open, and flared.

For whatever reason, maybe it was even just psychological, she couldn't produce the same amount of flared flame from her feet or hands like she could from her wings. Still, though it wasn't a gushing tidal wave of frosty fire, it was enough to slow her descent enough she didn't crater the street.

It also splashed biting flames five feet all around her landing spot, plenty of space for her to twist around and get her feet under her. As soon as her boots hit the stone, El spun to her right, cutting once, twice, three times to clear away a pair of hangnails. Where the creatures had been able to parry aside her flame-blade before, they didn't fare so well against the plasma version. Despite their ugly, fishy faces, the look of surprise as she cut through their claws—and them—was universal, and El's own lips quirked in a small smile as she spun and slashed again.

A third hangnail took the horizontal cut through the side of its face, not even fast enough to get its claws up. Scaled flesh froze, cracked, then broke faster than El's arm could bring the weapon around, and her blade exploded out the other side. Frozen blood trailed behind, in some places still connecting the two halves of the head like some macabre sculpture, until they too simply disintegrated under the extreme, magical cold.

Those three were the immediate threat, but more were already closing in, and a quick look toward the rushing package of light within the tube told El she didn't have time to play around. Bringing her arm back in close, El leapt into the air in a tight pirouette and flared her wings as she spun. Like the center of a flaming, terrible top, hungry flames washed out in every direction. Hoarse cries of surprise and pain began and vanished in an instant, as if even the sound was frozen and broken apart by the cold.

Two rotations around in a single breath, and El landed back on the ground, frozen bodies like statues arrayed on all sides. Already they were crumbling at the edges, but El lunged at the metal tubing. Snapping her wrist, the plasma blade sliced through the metal with minor—though surprising—resistance.

"That should do…" she started, the pulse reaching the break in the line at the same time—then leapt the gap. Flames spilled out both sides, enough to scorch the road and force El back a step in surprise, but the pulse shot away from her, dimmer but still moving. "Burn it!"

El leapt into the air, flaring her wings to catch up to the racing ball of light as it zipped under monsters moving to shield the tubing from her. "Just cutting the tube isn't enough," El said into the magic of her communicator. "Probably going to need to remove a piece."

"Easier said than done," Nidina replied. "These things seem to know what we want to do."

"And they're not happy about it," Laze added.

"Tell them to lodge a complaint with General Cannon," El growled, adding a second flare to get ahead of the pulse. Looking ahead, the large ring was only four blocks away, and she'd needed to flash down two just to get ahead of the pulse again—it was moving fast. But, she also needed to make sure she had enough time to cut out a big enough piece of tubing the stolen Sparks wouldn't be able to simply leap over it again.

A third flare, her flight taking her just above the outstretched hangnail claws leaping and slashing to reach her, and she searched for the best place to land. Ahead, at the next intersection, a pair of seawyrms came charging out from each side street, each as big as the one she'd fought on the Pilish ship, and trampling hangnails as they rushed for her.

Okay, the best place is going to be somewhere before them!

Cutting her flare and tucking into a roll, El half-somersaulted in the air before immediately flaring again. Hangnail eyes widened in surprise right below her as she came to an abrupt halt before shooting straight down at them. Her blade swept out in wide arcs as she went, no particular style or aim guiding her swings. No, she just cut. Two slashes—that was all she had time for—and she slammed into the ground beside the tube.

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Shoulder groaning in pain despite the frost armor turning most of the impact into cold that spread out to the monsters around her, El rolled on the ground and got her feet under her. A second blade ignited to life in her other hand, though she didn't take the time to condense it to the plasma state. It would serve well enough to keep the nearest hangnails at bay anyway, and she lunged out with it, Sea of Snakes and Flames driving one back. The creature's back foot tripped over the tube it seemed to have forgotten it was protecting in its scared rush to escape her blade, and El brought her other sword up and over.

The plasma blade only nicked the front of the creature's fishy nose, but the spreading cold froze all the way to its eyes and beyond, and the front half of its face fell off. Even before that hit the ground, though, El's continued downward strike cleaved through the tube—and the ground beneath. That's one.

A quick look told her the bundle of fast-moving Sparks wasn't far—fifty feet away at most—so El shifted to the side and started bringing her sword back up in a return swing. Her other, flaming sword was still out in front of her, but she couldn't spare the attention to do more than wave it absently. Basically completely forgoing defense, a pair of hangnails leapt at the opening.

Lines of tight pain scored down the center of her back—Apparently, it was three hangnails—while more crossed her left leg and right arm. Blue flashed from the frost armor doing its job, but she could feel the simultaneous strike straining her protection. Can't take a lot of those.

Luckily, she didn't have to, her plasma sword tearing back out of the ground to cut at a 'V' to where her first strike had hit the tube. Sching, the metal parted, and El let the momentum of her swing pull her forward a step over and past the tube. Another look, the pulse barely twenty feet away now, and she spun, wildly swinging her blade around at hangnail-face height. Apparently, the creatures had seen how deadly her weapon could be, and they leapt back in panic.

Now it was El who had the opening, and she stepped back in with a kick. Catching the tube under the curve with her boot, her frost-armor-enhanced strength was more than enough to remove the two-foot section. GOONG, the piping smashed into the face of hangnail directly in front of her, shattering whatever bones it had there and flipping the monster head over heels, before spinning end over end towards the nearest building.

With that done, what would…

BOOOOOM, the speeding Sparks met the open air—and apparently, the distance was too much for them to simply jump the gap—exploding with enough force to hurl El backwards. Light and heat washed over her, enough her frost armor couldn't completely negate it, and her skin felt like what she imagined a barbequed steak would. WHAAAM, her back slammed into something very solid, blasting the air from her lungs at the same time the huge ball of flame in front of her consumed everything.

Everything but the sound. The fire… shrieked. Cries of pain and rage, hundreds of them all at once, almost deafening, and then they were gone. El's back slid down the wall she'd hit, and her feet touched down at the same time the fire vanished. Without the protection of her frost armor, the hangnails hadn't had the luxury of being hurled across the street. Instead, strewn about the roadway—and even the wall beside El—all that remained of the monsters were black stains in the shapes of their bodies.

Movement to her right, El dove forward just in time to dodge under a cutting stream of water that split the wall behind her. A roll, a stumble, then a flare, and she was in the air again. A second wham as she clipped the lip of the roof across the way, and she flipped end over end before crashing back down on top of the building.

"Didn't stick the landing," she groaned, but pushed herself back to her feet as she heard the unmistakable sound of what could only be huge claws crunching their way into stone. No surprise, a second later, a seawyrm's large head crested the side of the building, mouth already opening to spit slicing water in her direction.

Still a little wobbly, El simply dove off the nearest side of the building, the stream passing through where she'd just been. She ignited her wings halfway down—not trusting in her own aim to flare until the world stopped spinning around her—then twisted and arced up into the air. The seawyrm's water attack was dangerous, but the range was limited, and she needed the height.

"Status?" she asked into her communication magic.

BOOM, came an answer from the north part of the city.

"Burning Blaze! Try not to be close to the tubing when you…" Nidina started.

BOOM, from the south.

"…cut the tubes," Nidina finished.

"You both okay?" El asked, swooping around the watery lances chasing after her, then outdistancing their most deadly range.

"My hair may be on fire, but I'm okay," Laze said.

El spotted a pair of flaming wings shoot into the sky near where the second explosion had sounded. Turning to the north… there! Nidina was also up in the air again.

"Damn, another one coming here." And Nidina's wings swooped back down towards the ground.

"Here too," Laze added, also diving.

Only a few blocks away from the massive ring, and with her altitude, El quickly surveyed the dozens of tubes running along the streets and converging below her. A glimpse of light between a hangnail's legs there, a reflection off seawyrm scales there, and a pair of the serpentine monsters rushing along to flank another pulse there…

At least three coming. I'll never get them all…

El spun in the air to look back at the ring. All the tubes went there. Yes, it was more heavily guarded than any other section of the city, but did she have a choice? Not really. Ducking her shoulder, El dove towards the ring, then almost immediately had to pull up short, the familiar—and painful—pull on her Spark aching in her chest. Even hundreds of feet away, the ring made it feel like something was trying to claw its way out through her ribs.

"I'll never get close enough…" she muttered, looking again at the three—no, five—pulses of light converging on the central ring.