Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El's sword came up at the same time she leaned back, triple-forged electrum blade deflecting the racing trident just enough to guide it across her face instead of through it. Blue sparks spitting from her frost armor as the weapon passed just in front of her eyes, El flared the bottom of one boot while kicking her other foot up. A second flare on the back of that other heel turned her lean into a midair cartwheel, with the dual arcs of blue flame forcing the clicker back a step.

Another quick pulse of power righted her in the air, and just in time, as the clicker came back in with a barrage of thrusts. Somewhat akin to Sea of Snake and Flames in its rapid-fire approach, El didn't have a shield – or the second arm – she'd normally use to counter the maneuver. Instead, she trusted in the power of her frost armor and aimed for mutual, calculated destruction.

Blue fire pulsed from her left shoulder, ducking her just under the first thrust – more sparks from her frost armor since she wasn't quite fast enough – and she swept her sword up and around in another uppercut. If it works…

Except it didn't.

In place of a left arm – something it'd obviously left on loan to Nexin by the looks of the bloody stump – a limb of dark water swept in to perfectly parry her blade. Where a flesh-and-blood arm probably would've parted beneath the plasma edge, this limb had the same solidity as the trident once again snaking forward to do her grievous harm.

Small tendrils of the dark-water arm got pulled into the sword, but the understanding of the clicker's power – or the slight growth of El's strength against it – wasn't enough to let her cut it. Instead, it almost held her in place for the trident to skewer her.

Having ducked under the monster's previous lunge, it had changed tactics and aimed for center mass. Given the barbed prongs on the trident, getting hit in the chest wouldn't be any more pleasant than taking it in the head. In the split second between her sword striking the clicker's arm and the trident reaching her, El flared power from the front of her left shoulder.

Blue flames geysered straight ahead, but the clicker either didn't fear her flames, or wasn't fast enough to evade. Given the look of determination filling its black-as-night eyes, it was the prior, and despite the fire washing across its trident and arm, the weapon slammed into El's side.

Right where her injured arm was.

Three new blossoms of pain ignited on her arm, immediately bringing the injuries she'd suffered on Wirock to the forefront of her mind. While the rune-inscribed bandaging improved how quickly she healed and helped manage the ongoing pain, it didn't do anything for the newest sensation.

Almost enough to make her pass out, the three piercing points turned into lines of agony that moved from her arm and across her ribs. And then she was shooting away, her whole mind just focused on staying conscious and keeping a grip on her sword.

In front of her, the clicker seemed to Tsk, but had to turn its attention to bringing the dark water up to try and smother the blue flames rippling across its good arm. Luckily for El, that wasn't an immediate solution to the problem, and she flew hundreds of feet from the impact.

By the time she was half the distance to the ground, she finally had enough control over herself to end her plummeting flight. More importantly – despite the terrifying prospect of looking – she found her frost armor had somehow held up against the attack. All that pain, and her armor had deflected the trident to just drag across her body instead of piercing right through it.

Note to self, the generals are strong.

Mutual destruction – calculated or not – was not an option. Her frost armor had taken the hit, but she couldn't count on it do turn aside many more. And, even if it did, the punishment she still took beneath the protection wasn't something her body could endure for long. She needed to be better than her opponent.

Looking up from her arm, she found the clicker looking down at her from the cyclone of dark water engulfing it from the waist up. It still had the same liquid left arm, while its right was scored with colorless burns where her flames had feasted. Unfortunately, the wounds didn't look to be anything more than superficial by the way it flexed its arm and tested the range of movement. A few clicks from behind sharp teeth managed to insult her heritage and compliment her at the same time. Something about her hips and endurance sharing an ancestor.

Giving the clicker her best glare, El pushed power into her wings and rose higher in the air until she was level with it. As if that was a signal to start again, the two of them rushed forward at each other. The clicker moved with a speed comparable to El's old flares – only as fast as she was now without the flare – but a quick adjustment to her trajectory proved it wasn't as agile in the air. Its lunging charge shot past her with the momentum of a runaway carriage, while she jerked up and to the side.

Even passing it, El flared her right shoulder, whipping her around to slash at the clicker's back. Too slow, and the thing passed just out of reach, before it snapped around in the air and came at her again. This time it didn't charge at her like a joust, but swept in more methodically, trident level and ready.

Keeping an eye on the dark water around its feet – it could turn into another weapon at any second – El darted in. Small wings on her shoulders kept her more mobile than the clicker, and she feinted in before cutting to the left. Up came the trident, ready for her attack, and her opponent ignored her feint to perfectly parry one, two, three quick slashes.

Blue flame licked at the dark water with every contact, stealing more of the Current to feed into El's Spark, but the clicker seemed to realize the same thing. All at once, the trident moved from parrying to thrusting as the monster's posture changed. Then it was El's turn to parry madly while she used her wings to strafe around her opponent.

Two quick parries – right and left – and she countered with a stabbing thrust of her own. Out of nowhere, the liquid left limb came across to bat the sword wide, while the clicker struck out again for her chest. A flare of her wings shot her up and over before it even fully extended its arm, and all it got for its effort as a wash of fire across its weapon and hand.

Fifty feet above it in a second, El ignited a detachable blade on her sword, then swung and released. The crescent of fire screamed through the air as it sped straight down, only to meet the clicker's weapon as it swept it across to swat her attack away. The tactic partially worked, the trident hitting the crescent like it was a solid object and deflecting it to the side. On the other hand, the flames lingered on the right-most prong, like the water itself had ignited.

Something about that infuriated the clicker, and it raced up to catch her, though El kept climbing, more and more detachable blades zipping down at the clicker. Needing to charge in a straight line to have any hope of catching El, the clicker was forced to barrel directly into her barrage of attacks. Its trident was a blur as it relentlessly parried her attacks, the flaming crescents of death crashing down into the mass of seawyrms still below them. One of the blades even clipped the other clicker that'd stuck around to watch the outcome, but El couldn't take any pride in the kill.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

All her focus was on the general following her as she raced for the clouds. Two of its three trident prongs were burning like bonfires now, despite more and more of the dark water climbing up the shaft to try and drown the flames. If anything, that almost seemed to make it worse, but for some reason, the clicker wouldn't let the trident go.

Is there something special about the water they use for their weapons?

One more whipping blade and El reached the clouds and disappeared within the thick mist. In Wirock, down on the ground, the fog had been the clickers' territory. An environment that'd almost killed her.

But she wasn't on the ground anymore. The clouds – the sky – were her territory. Up here, cat and mouse would be her playing field, but instead of changing direction to try and blindside the coming clicker within the mist, she popped out of the top of the clouds and cut her power. Still climbing, but not as fast, she tossed three more detachable blades. Left, right, vertical, she swung the three attacks. Straight down, the blades set the cloud glowing blue, and told the clicker exactly where she was. Two more swings – left and right – released another pair of horizonal blades, the same pattern she'd been using the whole climb upward, while she flipped herself upside down in the air. However, instead of the predictable, vertical blade to come next, El swept her sword from her right again.

If her timing was right… There!

El flared her wings and sword as the clicker pierced the clouds right in front of her, its trident already in position to slap aside the expected vertical blade. Instead, it was El barrelling straight for it, with her flared sword cutting in from the side and trailing what looked like a wave of blue flame behind it, and the clicker awkwardly positioned its weapon to desperately try and parry. Unlike El's mobility, the clicker couldn't change its direction at this speed, and it met her sword with one of its flaming prongs.

As soon as the two weapons met, the fire that'd been slowly eating away at the clicker's weapon whooshed off the trident and into El's sword. Where it'd been before, nothing was left, the Current that'd powered the section of dark water completely consumed. Not only that, El's powerful blow crushed the clicker's trident against its own body from the force of the swing.

Blue flames clawed at the clicker's face from the other flaming prong, and then it was the monster's turn to get whacked away from the force of the exchange. El streaked past where they'd met, while the monster shot off at an angle, streamers of flame and dark water mixing to connect from its face to El's sword. After thirty feet, the connection broke, though the streams of flaming water circled around the length of her blade, constantly moving like they were waiting for their turn to enter. And enter they did, the script along the triple-forged electrum drinking them up like a parched man in a desert.

As the Current entered the sword, it in turn filtered down through the pathway El had opened up, travelling all the way to where her blue-flame Spark resided in her chest. There, in that arcane not-place, it joined the other Current circling her Spark in the form of three crossing streams. With each rotation, strength, weakness, and meaning spread between the two. They were slowly melding, like her Spark and Sol's Storm had, though they weren't quite there yet. The Current she stole with each strike wasn't enough to fuel the transformation, but it was coming.

And what will it be when it's finished. What will I be?

That was yet another question for later as El pierced the bottom of the cloud, her head turning to the left to spot the spinning clicker plummet out of the mist. It hadn't managed to right itself in the second since El had smashed into it, and she cut, turned, and flared. Changing direction at a crazy seventy-five-degree angle without slowing, El's flames scarred the sky blue.

The roar of her flight echoed off the clouds above her like thunder, the ominous sound of it turning the clicker's head to look in her direction. With the left half of its face left colorless from the coldfire burns and its trident now more a spear – since she'd consumed two of the prongs – the previous disdain in its abyssal eyes had been replaced with concern. It didn't quite fear her – yet – but she'd apparently done enough to make it take her seriously.

Too bad she reached it before it completely regained control of its flight, her sword carving arcs of plasma blue as she came in swinging. The pair circled each other around in a tight corkscrew as they fell, weapons clashing over and over in the fight for an advantage. Somehow the clicker had managed to strengthen the trident so it didn't ignite with the first contact, but veins of the coldfire were beginning to worm their way into the clicker's weapon.

Just a bit more and she'd have it!

Upping the power she pushed into her sword, El condensed her flames even tighter around the sword. Plasma leaked from the edge and the runes, trailing in the air like small, molten streams, and left a weaving trail as they plummeted towards the ground. Less than a thousand feet and still clashing, their weapons were a blur of water and blue fire, the two opposing elements mixing as they went. Below them, seawyrms raised their heads to watch the battle, but didn't dare release their watery payloads for fear of hitting their general.

Muscles burning in her arm from the constant swinging, El's Spark practically sang in her veins, like it had replaced the blood flowing through her body. Yes, it hurt, but the exhilaration of it! It was like being really alive for the first time, a heady feeling like the freedom when she flew combined with the rush of pushing herself made physical. The boundary between blood, muscle, bone, and Spark grew hazy, and the tempo of her strikes increased.

Was this why Nexin was out here pushing himself? For this feeling? This growth? If I can…

WHAAAM, the clicker's left, liquid arm swept in from the side, catching El in the ribs underneath her extended right arm. Brilliant blue flashed as her frost armor reacted to transform the unbelievable kinetic energy into cold – the limb actually freezing from the blow – before El shot off to the side.

El's breath turned ragged in her lungs as she couldn't inhale or exhale, and new pain creased along her chest. Then she hit the ground hard enough to crater the hard stone, a wave of icy cold blowing outward from another kinetic conversion. Her whole body ached at that, replacing the icy fire that'd been filling her veins. All around her, dust from the impact hung in the air, but massive shapes reared within it, glints of sapphire blue reflecting around the multiple sets of eyes glaring down at her.

And, above, the clicker raised its trident as if to throw it. Blue flames flickered along a deep wound scarring its chest – where El had traded blows in the last exchange – but it didn't seem like they'd kill it before it attacked. She… was in a bad way. Surrounded. Hurt. Outnumbered.

El's hand tightened around her sword's hilt, her Spark leaping from her chest at the challenge, and she pushed herself up to one knee. Wings of blue flames erupted out of her shoulders to spread ten feet in each direction, the whomp of their appearance banishing the dust. Around her, the mass of seawyrms winced from the sudden cold, then seemed to share a nervous glance with each other.

If they thought she was just going to give up, they had another thing coming. She'd make them burn for every…

Twin blades of roaring, red plasma swept the field around El, incinerating everything in a fiery display that even triggered El's frost armor. Where the blades passed, apocalyptic eruptions that reached for the clouds followed. Seawyrms vanished in an explosion of dark ash, while the clicker above simply ceased to exist, along with the trident it'd just thrown in El's direction.

"I had them right where I wanted them, you know," El said as she looked up to find her brother floating down in front of her. Six wings of brilliant plasma extended from his shoulders, while giant swords fluttered out of existence into spinning embers from his hands. Dozens of spears – each six feet long and compressed into their plasma state – hung ominously in the air around him. His usually pristine uniform was shredded and torn, with only one leg left to his pants, and his jacket reduced to a one-banned tank-top.

Despite that, his skin shone golden, with lines of fiery veins running underneath. Most striking of all, the irises of his eyes had the same radiance as looking at the noonday sun.

A shiver ran down El's spine just glancing at her brother, but then he smiled, and his terrible power faded into the warm embrace of the only family she'd ever known.

"I saw," Nexin said. "But figured we should have that talk before we head back."