Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"I'm surprised you didn't drop me," Jenita said, her left hand wringing her right wrist to massage feeling back into it.

Being carried the whole way by one hand – without the extra strength provided by El's frost armor – likely wasn't the most pleasant.

"Somebody needs to keep the gateway open after I leave," El responded. "And Olip volunteered you. How's your arm?"

"… getting better," Jenita said, like she was forcing herself to be mean to El, and struggling with it. "I don't know how you can enjoy that. I felt like we were falling the whole time. Falling fast."

"It's a lot better when you control where – and how fast – you're going." El smiled at the other woman, the confrontational attitude was fading a little at a time. At least the glaring had mostly stopped.

Probably because I didn't drop her.

And the two days she'd spent within the community learning more about her connection to the In-Between and how to open the gates. The method she'd used before – opening the gate and then following a path to another gate – was quite crude according to the Salidians. The arches, like the ones back in Salid, were much more refined, directly connecting two permanent locations. However, with how strong El's connection was, Olip had said it should be possible for her to open smaller direct gates to places she'd already been.

The tunnels were still a good way to go somewhere new – something Olip said his people couldn't actually do. They always had to go to a location first, before they were able to create the doorways. That wasn't so difficult when they had generations of travellers who could ferry people around to new locations. Heading back to the real world, though, could prove to be a bit more challenging, since it'd been hundreds of years since the elders had moved around. For the younger ones – especially the ones who'd been born in the In-Between – they had no previous locations they could call on. Everything would be new for them.

For El, though, Olip had immediately recognized her potential for creating the direct gates, and had taught her how to do it. It'd taken a few days – time El worried would put her behind catching up to Sol – but Olip assured her it would save time in the long run. With the way time moved differently while she was traveling the pathways within the In-Between, El suspected he was right. Still, now that she'd gotten the hang of it, it was time for her to get back to the war.

Thankfully – in a way – the Salidians had needed time to get ready to leave their new valley, and El's two days of training was used for that preparation. The time it would take for them to travel to the gateway was another matter entirely, however, so she'd flown ahead with Jenita. The other woman would wait for her people while El attended to matters outside.

"Wow, your gateway is blue too?" Jenita asked, and El followed the other woman's gaze to the flames hanging in the air in the same shape as the arches in the room beyond.

The empty room beyond. Huh, did Singel finally get bored of looking at the portal?

"The wings aren't just a fashion statement."

"And none of the others have fire like that?"

"Nobody I've met," El said, thinking back to the painful process that'd led to her frozen Spark. Then the memory of the room with the Embers flashed behind her eyes, and it wasn't just Sol's actions that got her to where she was. "But, come on, I've got to get to my friend before he goes looking for that ring. You sure you can hold the gateway open until the others make their way here on foot?"

"Of course," Jenita said. "The Elder sent me because I have one of the strongest Sparks among our people. I'll be able to hold it open for days, if need be, and provide enough power to get others through to begin to aid me."

"How many do you think will come?" El asked, already walking towards the hanging portal.

"Most will wait until the situation with the Depths is resolved," Jenita said, one last rub of her wrist before she followed El. "The In-Between may be… static… but it's also safe. Doesn't sound like I can say the same for the outside world.

"Instead, Olip will bring a few dozen of our stronger people to… assist."

"I know you're hesitant to help me, because of our nations' history, but I promise this is for the best," El said. "And, maybe once this is all over, you can give me a chance to show you around a bit. Prove this isn't the same world. That Pycrin isn't the same group of conquerors you believe we are."

"Perhaps… but without the flying."

"Maybe we can make some kind of… hammock for you," El said with a chuckle as she reached the portal.

"Could you even carry it one-handed?" Jenita asked, and – surprisingly – there was a tiny, tiny note of concern in the woman's voice.

"This? I'll be all better in no time." Assuming no more avatars use me as a punching bag. "When we get out, I'll just close this and then you'll be able to reopen it? That's it?"

"Probably. It's not like I've ever successfully opened a gate using my Spark," Jenita said.

El looked up at the arch of flames. "So, I get why you couldn't maybe use this, but didn't you look for any of the other exits from the In-Between? They're all around us…"

Jenita didn't respond, and after several other seconds of silence, El turned to look at the woman, slightly worried she'd keeled over dead or something. Instead, she found the woman with her usual, narrowed eyes. Something about this was different than her usual glare, though.

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"Spit it out," El said. "What's wrong this time?"

"The other exits… how do you know there is one near us?"

El let her senses expand for one, two, three heartbeats, then brought them back in. "There are four, actually, within about… half a mile of here? There," she pointed in one direction, "there, there, and there." El pointed three more times, but Jenita's glare didn't ease at all.

"Are you screwing with me?" Jenita practically whispered. "You can feel the exits?"

"Yeah, can't you?"

Nope, by the look on her face, she most definitely can not. Because of my connection directly to the Ember? Has to be.

El held up a hand. "Sorry, obviously there's more we need to discuss, but… friend and soul sucking ring. We're leaving. You ready for the outside world?"

"No," Jenita said, still glaring, though with as much curiosity as anything else. "But that doesn't mean I can dally any longer. Let's go."

"Follow me, then," El said, stepping into the slightly blue sheen in the air. As soon as she passed through, she felt a change in the atmosphere almost immediately, the humidity of the nearby sea filling her lungs, while the smell of sea brine tickled her nose.

"… need help on the southern dock!" Glasses's voice came in over the communicator.

"Beddy, more up the north coast, and I think I see trouble up the street," Felina added. "They're all over the place!"

The hairs on the back of El's neck climbed, and more panicked chatter came over the comms. "Corporal Beddy, report," the snapped.

"Special-Sergeant?" Beddy asked. "Glad you're back. Small grey monsters – consistent with your description of hangnails – attacked a fishing vessel approximately ten minutes ago. We managed to fend off the creatures without losing any of the fisherman, though there were injuries, but then more of the creatures came out of the water all along the docks. We've been racing back and forth trying to keep them from dragging anybody under, but there's a lot of them."

"How many is a lot?" El asked, holding up a hand to stop Jenita from speaking.

"Dozens."

"I'm on my way." El ignited her wings and reached over her shoulder to draw Felps's sword from its In-Between sheath. With the glyphs on the blade already lighting up as her Spark touched them, she turned to Jenita. "Town is under attack. I'll leave it up to your judgement if you want to stay here or go back through. If you go back, I'll open the gate again as soon as it's safe."

"If you can't keep it safe while I'm here, why should my people risk helping you? I'm staying to see if you can hold up your end of the bargain," Jenita replied.

"Sure," El said with a shrug. "Just don't leave this building. I don't want to have to go looking for you after dealing with this." Then, without waiting for anything else from Jenita, El twisted and flared her wings, rocketing out of the building's door and into the street. Pulses of energy through the communication magic of her frost armor told her approximately where the five members of Beddy's wing were, and she turned her body and flared again.

Surprised eyes followed her as she left a trail of blue fire in the air, shooting herself above the roofs of the buildings to get a better vantage point. Directly ahead of her, five sets of flaming wings darted along the docks and coastal edge of the town. And, around them, small grey bodies with long claws swarmed. Individually, the Firestorm should easily be able to hold their own against the hangnails, but there simply weren't enough of the good guys to deal with the monstrous numbers.

Already, El spotted the beasts charging deeper into the town in search of easier prey.

They're going to be disappointed.

Picking her first target – a group of six creatures loping towards a crowd of wide-eyed and panicking civilians – El flared her wings and shot down like a comet. Time to see what she could do with only one arm…

El cut the distance in barely more than a heartbeat, the thrust of her wings whistling her through the air with a whine that turned the monsters' eyes in her direction.

The advance warning of her arrival didn't help them.

Before they even realized what was happening, El flipped in the air and flared blue flames from her feet. Cushioning her fall with the reverse thrust – and sending out a shockwave of death to consume the nearest two hangnails in freezing fire – El leaned forward and flared again as soon as she touched down. Around and across, she brought her glowing sword, bisecting the next hangnail before it could even bring its claws up to block. Another pulse of fire from her feet flipped her head over heels into a complete two-forty flip, her boots 'landing' on a nearby wall before she flared again, shooting off at an angle.

The next hangnail managed to bring its claws around in time – more through luck than skill by the looks of things – and El crashed onto the monster as she slammed her blade into its weapons. Into and through.

Unlike her ignited sword, which sparked when it met the hangnail's claws, the edge of Felps's sword almost seemed to glow more fiercely when it met the opposing blades. Taking on a sheen like when El compressed her flames to their plasma state, the cutting edge spread blue cracks along the hangnail claws. Then, faster than El could blink, the claws shattered like broken glass, and her sword continued to punch straight through the offending monster's head.

Four down, two to go.

El's small wings twisted her in the air again as her hard-soled boots skidded sideways across the road. Without waiting to stop – and fighting against the inertia of her movement – she pulled her sword in tight to her side, blade straight again, and launched forward. Her frost armor protected her body – mostly – from the strain of the maneuver, though her bound arm protested slightly, and she speared her weapon through a hangnail's chest.

Claw strikes sparked off her frost armor, lines of blue flame triggering from each cutting impact with little more pressure than a slight pinch making it through to El. Wham, she hit the wall. Well, more accurately, the hangnail hit the wall, with El's shoulder following a heartbeat later. Though the sword through the chest would've been a fatal wound after she removed the blade, the crushing pressure of her advance completely devastated the poor thing's torso.

Blood gushed out of the wound – spraying across El's frost armor – and the lifeless body between her and the, oops, cracked wall twitched in the final throes of death. With that threat gone, El spun around, dragging her sword with her. Metal screeched as it carved through the stone – apparently she'd speared the wall as well as the hangnail – until she pulled her blade completely free and hurled the body off the end of it.

That just left one hangnail from the pack, and the monster stared dumbly at her and the five bodies of its comrades all around her. Well, at the pieces of them. It blinked its eyes, claws flexing as it prepared to…

El stabbed it in the face, her long, triple-forged electrum blade piercing its skull with little more resistance than an overripe fruit. The hands at its sides twisted once, then El mercilessly ripped her weapon free, the blade carving down the creature's face and through its shoulder at the motion. That dropped the whole hangnail to the ground, and El did a quick assessment of the battlefield.

All six hangnails are down, and civvies look unhurt – if slightly terrified.

"Get yourselves inside and don't come out until the fighting's done," she told them, then spun on her heel and flared her wings, heading towards the next sounds of a fight.