Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

Laze hated not telling El the truth of how bad things were, but she knew the worry would distract her friend. Right now, she – no, everybody – needed Nexin and El to focus on shutting down the northern ring.

"You still thinking about what you told El before we came into the city?" Nidina said through the communication magic as the two of them zipped between the tall buildings. Four clickers raced after them, their bolts of dark water shattering stone with each of the Firestorm's desperate evasions. "Yeah, she's going to realize something is wrong. Make it mean something. You're just as dramatic as she is."

"It just sort of came out," Laze muttered. "Incoming." With that simple word, Laze cut her wings, rotated her body in the air from the momentum alone until she was at a ninety-degree angle, then did something she was terrible at. She flared.

Unlike El and Nidina, her flares weren't instantaneous, and her body continued to rotate as she fed the power from her Spark to her shoulders. One heartbeat led to the next while her feet swung further ahead of her, changing her ninety-degree angle to a-hundred-and-ten. Then, finally, flames burst from her shoulders, and she shot sideways down an intersecting street.

She crossed behind Nidina as the other woman rocketed straight like she was supposed to, while Laze jetted across the street. Thinking fast, she ignited a shield on her right arm just before she collided with – and ground along – one of the tall building's walls. Sparking all the way, and her flame armor melting stone from the kinetic conversion, she eventually pulled herself way to trail after her friend at the same time almost a dozen flaming arrows shot in the opposite direction down the street.

The four clickers – who'd had to slow to a stop to make the turn – didn't stand a chance as the barrage hit them, and the intersection filled with flames and falling body parts in the rain. With the flashes dying behind her, Laze curved further from the wall to join Nidina as the two of them passed between the group of Firestorm, the other flyers falling in behind.

"Don't completely cut off your Spark to your wings when you do that," Nidina said. "Just almost cut the power, but leave the channel open. Makes it faster to flare with the conduit still in place."

Laze thought it over for a split second while they crossed the next block. "Where did you learn that?"

"El taught me. She's still burning faster at it, but it helps. A lot."

"Thanks," Laze said, then swapped to the open communication channel – for all it was worth – and reached out to their comms officer. "Any chance we got a channel open to the general?"

"Still being jammed," the comms officer, Trundle, said. "Whatever is blocking our communication is limited to the city, but it might as well be a solid wall. We can't get anything out."

"We can still send somebody physically out," Nidina said as the eight Firestorm did a quick look to make sure the cost was clear, then slipped inside the fifth floor of a nearby building.

Without the rush of air and the roar of her own wings, the concussive sound of the raging battle – along with the shaking ground – reached Laze. General Cannon, the convoy, and the majority of the Firestorm were fighting for their lives outside the city to delay the flood of the Depths. All so Laze and her three wings, and Sol most importantly, had a shot at shutting down the ring.

"We also stirred up the hornets' nest too much by that scouting we just did," Laze said. "And no guarantee anybody who got out would even be able to get back in. We'll just have to proceed as… planned."

Not that the cobbled-together "plan" actually deserved the title. Really, they should've just called it their only, suicidal chance at salvaging the fiasco Laze had created by thinking she was so burning smart. The Depths had seen through both their feints. Sure, they'd committed their forces in Pili to intercept the sizable ground force sent to reinforce the fort towns and that battle was going well from all reports.

But, they'd ignored the nearly empty fleet of ships heading across the sea for Wirock. The monsters that had gone out to meet the ships had just been a front, while the bulk of the force stayed in hiding to cut off the true strike at the ring. How they'd known about the plan remained a mystery – though Cannon believed there had to be a traitor somewhere – but it was moot of this point. When things had gone decidedly sideways, Cannon had sent her small contingent into the city to accomplish what they'd come to do.

The main force had thrown almost everything at the city to slip them through in the chaos, but then it became a brutal fight at the edge with the Depths' reinforcements arriving from behind. That'd been less than a few minutes ago – the same time she'd messaged El – and the ground shaking like an earthquake since meant the fight was nothing less than desperate.

Still, even with that all on the line, Laze had refused to rush straight towards the ring, and had instead camped most of her people for a brief rest while scouts got the lay of the land.

"Report," she said.

"The city almost seems empty of hangnails and seawyrms," the first scout said. "They must have thrown everything against our offensive on the east side of the city. The few monsters I saw were rushing in that direction."

Laze nodded. "Hangnails wouldn't be much of a threat to us, but seawyrms and their breath attacks could be problematic. Last time we were here, we saw some of them coiled up on the tops of buildings. Did you look up?"

"As much as I was willing to risk it," the man said. "I didn't go above the building line, but unless they were curled up and purposely trying to stay hidden from below, they're gone too."

"Good enough, and good work," Laze said. "Once we make our move on the ring, get some altitude and report from there."

"Understood."

"Next."

"Ring has at least a dozen clickers around it that I could see," the second scout said.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

That wasn't so bad.

"Three of them were riding cyclones of dark water."

"Generals," Laze hissed. That was significantly more bad. And three of them.

"I can handle at least two of them," Sol said. "Maybe all three if they are only average."

Laze shook her head immediately. "We need you to focus your strength on the ring. And to get to it right away. Since I told El to get started, you can bet Nexin is already there. We can't delay and miss our window."

"And how will you deal with three of their most powerful warriors?" Sol asked, no derision in his voice. Actually, he sounded worried. And not just because of what El would do to him if something happened to her friends.

"Three generals," Nidina said before Laze could respond. "Three wings of Firestorm. We've got this. You just worry about your part of it."

Sol looked at each of Nidina, Dayne, and then Laze, and finally nodded. "Understood."

"Good, then here's the plan," Laze said, crouching down to the dusty floor. One benefit of the ruined city and escalating battle just outside was the shaking left a lot of debris around, and she began sketching quickly with her finger in the dust. "This is the ring. Can you point out where you saw the clickers? And the generals specifically."

The second scout quickly joined her and filled in the information, using small 'o's for the clickers, and x's for the generals. "They probably moved since I saw them, but this is where they were."

"It's fine, this is the best we'll get. These are our entry points," she went on, labeling two side streets and a building she'd spotted herself that'd been practically gutted. At that third location, she looked up at Sol. "You'll follow my wing through here. Dayne, this one is you, and Nidina, you're here."

Dayne nodded immediately, but Nidina stared at the "map" for a few long seconds before she finally said anything. "I think I know what you're planning. It's barely more than an alley, and a narrow one at that."

"Exactly why they won't expect you to come out of there," Laze said. "It'll be tight – really tight – and you won't be able to build up much speed, so you'll need to come out gunning."

"We'll be coming out one at a time…"

"Which is why Dayne's unit will be coming in hot here." Laze tapped Dayne's entry point a second time. "He'll be the distraction for us. Just long enough for the clickers to turn their backs, that's all, or he'll be overwhelmed, then we hit them.

"Sol, as soon as my wing is through, you follow and head straight for the ring. Don't slow to engage the clickers, no matter what. We'll cover you."

For his part, Sol just nodded and then slipped the plate helm on.

"Good. We're short on time, so two minutes to get your heads in the game, then we're going," Laze said, then waved over Nidina and Dayne for a private chat. "We've only got one shot at this."

"We only need one," Dayne said, face as straight and sure as he always was. Having him back from his injury was worth far more than just a sword in his hand.

Laze reached up to grip the big man's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"He's right," Nidina said.

"But," Laze said, forcing the words out and keeping her face straight for any of the other Firestorm watching. "If he's not, or if something…"

"Don't," Nidina interrupted. "We all know why we're here. And none of this is your fault, no matter what you're thinking. We had every Pycrin general worth a burning damn approve the plan. Take a page out of El's playbook and stop thinking."

"It's time for action," Dayne agreed. "And when we get back home, all of us, we can talk about what went wrong so we don't do it again."

"Probably while El is eating one of her fiery pork bombs," Nidina said.

"And not paying attention," Laze chuckled. "So we'll need to repeat everything."

"Just like it should be," Dayne said, and the two women nodded with him.

"Then you both know what to do. As Tas would say, don't die."

"Best advice I've ever heard." Nidina patted her friends each on the arm, then turned to confer with her wing.

Dayne gave Laze a simple nod, then went to do the same.

Barely a minute later, they jogged to the opening in the building, ignited their wings, and split into three groups. Dayne's unit shot up and ahead, ready to make an entrance, while Nidina shot off to the left and then ducked into an alley.

"Follow me," Laze instructed, though she needn't have bothered. Her unit knew what it needed to do, and trailed close on her tail as she first went right, then cut through another series of hollowed out buildings. From the looks of it, something – or somebody – had been punched through four solid blocks of stone walls. Which, conveniently, gave them a straight line at the ring she could just barely see as the holes lined up.

"Ready," Nidina's voice crackled over the communication magic. Whatever was jamming them from communicating outside the city was making even the short-range version struggle.

"Going," Dayne responded.

"So are we," Laze told her unit, then powered her wings to full while igniting eight arrows on her bow. Torn up rooms whipped past her as she bolted through the makeshift tunnel, stone sizzling where her wings chipped through it, and explosions of flame flashed ahead. It didn't more than another three seconds before she burst from the side of the building to find the massive ring two hundred feet ahead of her, and a dozen clickers turned to face Dayne's wing above.

"Remember, watch your aim and don't get close to that ring," Laze told her unit as she zeroed in on one of the clickers riding a cyclone of dark water. Her fingers released the arrows on her bow, and the barrage spiraled away, slipping between two clickers who didn't even notice her, before colliding with the unaware general.

Eight simultaneous explosions ripped outward, completely engulfing the general and another nearby monster. Just like that, she'd reduced the enemy's power dramatically, and her wing followed up by decimating the two clickers her opening salvo has slipped between. In her peripheral vision to the left, Nidina's wing came out of the alley low to the ground, then drove up like thieves in the night at the backs of another trio of clickers looking in the wrong direction.

Within the few seconds of the initial engagement, they'd cut the clicker force in half, and Sol was already slipping through below for the ring. They could do this!

Except, movement in the fading flames where she'd fired her arrows had her stomach dropping. A sideways slash of a dark-water trident dispelled the last of the lingering fire, and the clicker general glared down at her. Small burns scarred its black and white hide, but it hardly looked injured compared to how hard she'd hit the thing. Then, as fast as El flaring, the thing launched itself straight towards her.

Only Laze's training with her friend's absurd speed saved her life, honed reflexes pulling her to the side just in time to avoid the blur that struck out for her. Unfortunately, the wingmate slightly behind her didn't fare so well, and Laze spun at the sound of a titanic crash.

Pieces of the already strained building broke off from the higher floors to smash down to the ground next to the newly formed crater. The one with a Firestorm pinned to the ground by a trident straight through the man's chest. Blood poured from the wound as the clicker yanked its weapon free, and it seemed to tisk at itself.

A series of clicks from another of the generals criticized the first for outright killing the enemy instead of throwing his Spark through the ring. Then, completely ignoring its own statement, that clicker swatted another Firestorm out of the sky like a fly. A second crater spread around the impact zone as the Firestorm practically turned to paste, and then a third followed immediately after.

Things had gone from a good start to very bad, very quickly.

"See if you can lead them away from the ring," Laze said into the communication magic, then turned to try and do just that.

Except the clicker general who'd tried to impale her had noticed Sol feeding cold energy into the ring in an attempt to seal it. Even if it didn't know what was going on, it would know it wasn't a good thing for their side.

"Cancel that order," Laze said and hit the general with another volley of eight arrows. "They've seen Sol. Engage! Buy him as much time as we can."

With that, and the flames fading from around the clicker below her, Laze dove towards the enemy that would likely kill her within the next thirty seconds.