Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

With her left hand in the avatar's chest up to her elbow, and her right hand pushing back the thing's throat so it didn't start gnawing on her, El flared her power. Starting with her left shoulder, blue flame blasted out in a wide cone before moving down her arm to flood out of her elbow. That was the last she saw of the fire before it burst inside the avatar's torso.

At which point the avatar screamed again, its right arm flailing against the wing she'd braced to protect her from just that kind of action. With the flames moving from her wrist, that only left her fingers – where she'd been willing her power to go – and when that happened, veins of blue shone even through the thick shell covering the avatar's upper half. More of the crawling lines spread down the tentacles that stiffened and twitched, and up the side of the monster's head as they reached for its eyes.

But, really, that wasn't the worst of what was happening to the avatar, because inside its chest, El had found the true source of its Current. Like the Stormbearer had tried to do her, El grabbed on to that metaphysical power source, and she pulled.

Grasping the dark liquid in a net of coldfire, she braced her legs on the avatar's chest and began to haul. Her arm flexed, more gouts of blue flames jetting from her shoulder and elbow as the armor reinforced her strength. The avatar's flailing right arm battered her electrum wing, but the blows didn't carry the beast's true strength. As for its tentacles, they were hardly a threat, seizing and locking in alternating waves that didn't even come close to reaching her.

No, the only real threat the thing presented was the mouth pushing against her right arm like it was going to try to bite her face off. Possessing a powerful neck, it was actually getting closer too. El was throwing all her power into consuming and ripping the Current right out of its chest, which left very little strength to hold back the head.

Shark-like teeth chomped at the air as the avatar leaned forward, trying to reach her face. The distance was steadily closing, but she could feel the Current in its body tearing away from the connections that fed it power. That tied it to the Fathom. It was a race between who would…

Nexin's fist slammed into the forehead of the avatar, driving its head back into the ground so hard cracks spread along the stonework.

"Definitely dramatic," Nexin said, throwing a second punch, then a third, into the avatar's exposed face. "Hurry up and finish what you're doing."

"Uh… sure," El said as her brother mercilessly pummeled the avatar. Still, she couldn't complain – it was working. The right arm was barely slapping against her wing now, and she had the Current down to its last thread. Another good pull…

El flared one more time, and the final tiny stream of dark liquid shattered. Without the tethers tying it to the avatar, all the power of its Current had no place to go, except into her. Her arm came tearing out of the avatar's chest in a shower of frozen blood and blue flames, dark liquid circling around and around her arm. Almost like it was alive, it crawled up the limb to her shoulder, then down around her chest.

"Is that safe?" Nexin asked, clear worry on his face – though he was still punching the avatar in the head.

"It's fine," El said. "It's not like the Embers. There isn't a consciousness to it. Just power. And it's mine now."

Even as the said the words, the Current sunk into her body, following the channels she used to move the power of her Spark back into her chest. There, it merged with the streams she'd already formed, and her Spark finished its transformation into something new.

Closing her eyes, she could almost see it. What had started as a red fire in her chest when she was young had changed into a blue fire after Sol's intervention. Now, with the introduction of the Current, it was more of a blue fire made of a thick liquid. It still flickered and burned like a fire, but the substance of it held weight. It wasn't blue lava, but that was the closest thing she could think of. And, most importantly, she felt how the power still held aspects of all three gods.

"So." Nexin punched the avatar. "What." He slammed his fist again into the crushed face. "Now?" Another blow took the thing's jaw clean off.

"Now? Now I shut these gates," El said, ripping her wings free from where they'd impaled the motionless avatar. If it wasn't dead, it was very close, and El wasn't worried about it. She had bigger things to deal with – like the Fathom.

"How are you going to do that? We need a god's power," Nexin reminded her.

"And I know exactly where to find one," El said, flames coiling out from her hands to open portals to the In-Between on either side of her. Except, these portals didn't show gigantic trees inside them. Nor did they show the imposing mountain range where she'd found the Salidians. No, these places were dark.

Impossibly dark, and water began to leak out of the bottom of them, though El held most of it back. From there, she opened a third and fourth portal, through and beyond the first two. On her right, a deep cavern appeared, with the ring underneath them. On her left, a city ravaged by war, with a battle still raging in the distance.

"Uh, Nexin," El said, looking at her brother. "Catch me if I fall?"

"Always," he said.

"Then, here goes." With that, El flooded all three of her powers out. Towards the ring in Wirock, she sent the third of her Spark connected to the Rime, the portion of the Storm she'd absorbed. Icy energy began to light the runes, starting at the bottom and slowly working their way up the inner ring. While her Storm energy flowed that way, she pushed the part of her Spark representing the Pyre through the portals to the ring below them.

Like in Wirock, the runes began lighting up immediately.

So far, so good. Next is the tricky part.

As the runes ignited, El could feel what Nexin had talked about, the thresholds that needed increasing purities of power. Like him, if she just continued what she was doing, she'd hit the eighty-percent mark and run into a wall. But, she wasn't going to just continue.

That was the whole reason she'd opened the two portals and stolen the avatar's Current.

Though she wasn't sure exactly where the Fathom was trapped, she knew it was deep within the In-Between. Her stolen Current gave her a general idea where that was, and more importantly, tied her power directly to the Fathom itself while the portals were open.

Pushing her power through the Fathom's realm – and stealing a touch of its divinity at the same time – she bled that over into her Spark and Storm.

All at once the world around her seemed to blur, the dark sky darkening even further. The sound of the rain faded from her ears, and after a single blink, she seemed to be hovering in a great, wide… nothing.

Dark and deep, that was all she could feel. There was a pressure all around her, like the weight of the world, but it wasn't uncomfortable. If anything… it felt like a familiar embrace.

"Welcome," a deep, gurgling voice said. "You who seeks to seal me away again have come to my prison."

***

Laze braced for the salvo of fiery lances that'd obliterate her completely. She'd seen the damage one of these golems could do, and her flame armor was in no way up to the task of protecting her. In front of her face, a glow began deep within the long barrel, a heat rising out ahead of the payload.

This was it, but she forced her eyes to stay open. To face her death with courage. To…

The barrel shifted and fired, a flaming spear bigger than her leg blasting over her shoulder. The heat of it triggered her flame armor, but it didn't hurt, and Laze's jaw dropped. Somewhere behind her, an explosion shook the earth.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Mind whirling, she rotated in the air to find dozens of Guldish golems rampaging across the battlefield. Three stood within twenty feet of her, unloading blast after blast down the tunnel she'd just come from. If any of the Depths had thought to follow her Firestorm out of the underground passage, they'd found nothing more than a very bad time.

Looking past the fire-filled tunnel – nothing would be surviving that – she turned her attention to the ongoing battle, and tuned into the command channel. General Cannon's voice came surprisingly calm and collected across the communication magic as he barked out orders. Firestorm were flanking units of the Depths that were trying to retreat, while the groundies and Pilish soldiers crushed them again the line of Guldish golems.

Golems that were fighting on the same side of Pycrin.

"How?" Laze asked into the channel without realizing she was speaking. From the looks on Dayne's and Nidina's faces, she wasn't the only one wondering what the Blaze was going on.

"Laze?" Cannon asked. "Communications are back up? How much longer until the ring is sealed?"

"Uh… Sir, I'm sorry," Laze forced herself to say through the shock. "We… failed. Sol wasn't able to seal the ring, and we were forced to retreat."

"Retreat?" Cannon asked. "Where are…? How are you behind us? And if you're there, who's filling the runes on the ring?"

"We found an old underground trade tunnel and took it to… wait, what? Somebody is filling the ring?"

"Come up here and join me," Cannon said, and a directional ping showed up on Laze's flame armor.

"On my way, Sir," Laze said, then waved for the others to follow her as she shot into the sky to meet with the general. Below her, she got a good look at the battle. At the massacre. And not one in favor of the side she'd expected. When she'd left to enter the city, a massive army of the Depths had been closing on the coalition force from behind.

She'd completely believed the convoy would get squashed between the Depths rushing out of the city and ones rushing from the other direction.

Instead, it looked like it had been the ambushing Depths that'd gotten pincered between the convoy and the Guldish golems – wherever they'd come from. That question would have to wait, though, as Laze joined General Cannon where he directed the battle from, and turned to look deeper into the city.

Just like he'd said, the runes running along the inside of the ring had begun filling with blue energy.

"Sol?" she asked.

"It's not me," Sol confirmed.

"Then who could it be?" Cannon asked.

"There's only one other person who has an aspect of power similar to mind," Sol said. "It has to be El."

***

"Uh…" El started as something beyond massive shifted within the darkness ahead of her. To call it huge, or big, or gigantic didn't do it justice. It stretched beyond the limits of her sight, even turning her head and shifting her eyes, she couldn't make out more than a silhouette. There were tentacles – of course there were – and that was probably a claw big enough to crush a mountain.

The Fathom dwarfed the incarnations she'd seen of the Pyre and the Rime, but there was no mistaking it. Though slightly different, the same inscrutable touch of divinity radiated from it. And, if it decided to squash her, there wasn't much she could do to stop it.

But, it hadn't squashed her, so she continued pouring power into the twin rings, the Fathom's own divine essence bleeding into the energy she used.

"You worry I will kill you," the Fathom said. "Destroy you for stealing my Current and using it to seal me here."

"It crossed my mind," El admitted, the rings each passing the fifty-percent mark.

"I will not," the Fathom said. "Finish your work and be gone."

"Why?" El asked before she could stop her mouth.

Something shifted ahead of her, like the Fathom leaned forward on its knees – Does it even have knees? – to look more closely at her.

"We should be sealed," the Fathom said, its voice almost fatherly now that El had gotten used to the liquid aspect of it. "When free, a madness overtakes us. My brother and sister are no different, so the Pyre was split into his Embers, while the Rime – my sister always was the most responsible – sealed herself within a buried glacier.

"The madness, the rage and hate, affects even our creations. We learned millennia ago the only way to protect our children from this poison is to be sealed. Separated from each other. But, as soon as we touch our world again, that poison seeps through, clouding our minds and driving us to free ourselves. It is… an endless cycle."

"What caused it?" El asked. The rings had reached seventy percent. "Can we… cure you?"

The space around her shook like an earthquake, and it took El a moment to realize the Fathom was chuckling.

"Only true death would cure us, and none have the power to do that. Not even my siblings. No, the best option is the cycle of sealing us every time we begin to awaken. As for what caused it…? I do not know. For an eternity we lived in peace… until we didn't. Wars erupted as our children – our creations – fought to take the lands we'd shared.

"Our world was a small one, but we were happy with it. Satisfied."

"Until you weren't," El echoed something it had said earlier.

"Correct. Here, I am at peace. Many of my children are even here with me, where they can live lives free of hate and battle. Those that slip out become… something else. Hideous caricatures of themselves. Twisted and broken.

"I can smell their blood on your hands, and until you joined the rings and began closing them, I dreamt of nothing more than annihilating you for hurting them. For trying to stop me. Now that you've cut off the insidious poison, though, my mind is once again my own. So, please, finish quickly and go."

"I… didn't exactly bring myself here," El pointed out.

There was another rumbling of the space around El as the Fathom chuckled again.

"Oh, silly me," the Fathom said, followed by a sound like the god slapping its knee at a good joke. "I did that, didn't I? My apologies."

"Forgiven…?" El said. "But, uh, could you send me back so I can finish?"

"Of course, and good luck," the Fathom said, followed by a sound like a snap of fingers – or the clacking of a claw.

Within another blink of her eyes, El was back in the pouring rain, blue flames roaring above the body of the fallen Avatar. Nexin still stood above its pulped head, and looked at her like nothing had happened.

Did I really just go to wherever the Fathom was? I kind of hope so, cause if my imagination made that all up, I need help…

Putting the thoughts aside, El turned her attention to the portals on either side of her. And, more importantly, to the rings beyond them. While she'd been distracted, they'd filled to almost eighty percent. This was the point where she'd find out if her plan worked, or if she'd have to come up with something else…

The runes lit up without slowing, crossing the threshold that'd blocked Nexin, and continued towards the peak. El blew out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and glanced at Nexin to see him give her a thumbs up.

"You did it," he said.

"Almost," she agreed, the portals to the In-Between growing more difficult to maintain as she got closer to turning the key. Without the triple-forged-electrum armor – or the Fathom's power she was directly siphoning off – there was no way she could've powered both rings by herself. With those two things, though, it seemed she had just enough.

Still, sweat beaded on her face as she crossed ninety percent, and the gates on each side of her shrunk to the size of her hands. Through them, the runes neared the top of the rings, and the space within the large circle blurred.

Like before, when the Fathom had tried to escape while El was on Wirock the first time, a sheen appeared within the ring. This one, though, didn't bend and warp like something inside was trying to escape. If anything, it seemed to be growing more solid with every passing second. What had started as a haze became dense, like moisture condensing into heavy mist. That fog continued to form thicker and thicker, but it wasn't ice that formed. No, it was more like marble. Deep black stone with veins of blue and red depending on the ring – The power of my Spark? – and El felt the runic completion pass ninety-nine percent to snap shut.

There was a massive pulse of power, shredding El's hold on the two portals as the In-between vanished. Blowback rippled out of the tunnel leading down to the ring, the air rushing past like a hurricane-force wind. But, just a second, and it was over – though it still resulted in El pulling herself up from the ground where she'd gotten thrown.

"How much you want to bet Esis is going to be a little pissed at that?" she asked her brother, who was also sitting up. Bodies of dead Depths had cushioned their tumble, but part of El twinged at the sight. If what the Fathom said was true, the "monsters" weren't really to blame. Yeah, they'd killed… well, a lot of people… but did they have a choice?

Maybe Bones can find the answer in the Vestish library.

"Pretty sure she'll just be happy to be alive," Nexin said, standing up and offering El his hand. "Nite, though, will probably still be blaming Sol."

"Probably," El agreed, taking her brother's hand and letting him help her up. A groan escaped her lips as pretty much everything was sore, but she didn't complain a bit as he pulled her into a tight hug.

"You did it," Nexin said softly. "Don't really know how, but it's like Nidina said it would be."

"What was?" she asked without moving her head from his shoulder.

"She said, and I quote, 'Things will look burning bad. Then El will do something stupid or dramatic – probably both – and things will work out. Just expect to have to carry her home.' Do you need a piggyback?"

"No. Just get my lunch when we get back," El said as the siblings separated. "We should probably go make sure Esis and the others are actually still alive though. I closed the rings, but…" she gestured to the Depths still moving at the edges of the battlefield. "They didn't get sucked back in or anything."

"Still work to do, then," Nexin said, igniting his plasma wings.

El took a deep breath, watching as the closest of the Fathom's creatures turned and fled. "Can we… not kill them, if we don't have to?"

"They'll be a threat later if we let them go." Nexin raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I know, but there's some stuff I need to tell you after we make sure Esis and the others are okay. It's kind of heavy, so let's just get everybody to safety first."

"Okay," Nexin said with a nod. "You did basically just save the world, so I think I can trust you a little more on this."

"Saved the world, huh?" El said, tilting her head back. "I better get a free fiery pork bomb mark two for this."

"I'll get you three."

"And I love how you knew two wasn't enough." El gently punched her brother in the stomach, then ignited her own wings. It was time to get the Boomers and head home.