Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

Laze watched as the portal to the In-Between winked out in front of her, the last blue embers of flame fizzling out with a small pop. Around her, the familiar stone spikes instead of trees littered the area, while the smell of the sea tickled her nose. The three Firestorm stood in a small clearing, a view of the shimmering blue laid out before them.

It was pretty… if ominous. Laze knew what lurked under those waves.

"Same spot we stopped to eat after dropping the civvies off at the Bucking Bride," Nidina said from beside Laze.

"Places involving food usually have the strongest connections for El," Nexin chuckled.

"We didn't even get to eat," Laze said. "Had to rush off just as the soup was ready."

"A lost opportunity to eat? I bet El was furious."

"She did single-handedly dismantle one of the Pilish warships after that. The one that caused us to run off in a rush in the first place," Laze said.

"You know, I never put the two points together before," Nidina added. "No wonder she took her frustrations out on it."

"Yeah," Laze agreed, taking a deep breath of the sea air and moving on to more serious topics. "It's only been a few days since we separated from Tas and Bits near Wirock, and even if they headed immediately back to Pili, they probably would've only arrived yesterday at the earliest. Since this is where they left from, I'm hoping it's also near where they would come back to."

"Lot of big rivers lead deeper inland," Nidina said. "Do you think the Bride could take one?"

"Without the wind, and against the current, probably not," Laze said. "One of those Pilish warships though? Definitely. Either way, this is where we start looking for them. Nexin, what's your plan? You said something about training?"

"Really, it's just going to be fighting. Against something I don't need to hold back on," Nexin said. "It's not pretty, but I'll fly up and down the coast to find any of the Depths I can. Then I'll kill them."

"You know," Nidina interrupted. "We call that avatar thing the Depths, and we call the horde of monsters the Depths, and Bits was saying it's the god behind it all that actually is the Depths. We need a better naming convention."

"I won't be going after the avatar," Nexin said. "I can't take it. Not yet. The seawyrms and – What did you call them? Hangnails? – are enough for now. I need targets, lots of them."

"Good, none of us want anything to happen to you," Laze said. "You're too important."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Nidina's elbow jabbed into her ribs, and she looked over to find the woman wink at her.

"Not like that," she said, despite her heart fully agreeing with the statement. Nexin really wasn't just important to everyone, he was important to her. But, that wasn't what she'd meant. "Of course I don't want anything happening to you, Nexin." Laze purposefully turned away from Nidina to look at the man beside her. "But if we're going to win this… war… we need you to be able to take down the avatar. When you're ready of course. You don't have to rush. Take as long as you like. Make sure you eat your vegetables, and get a good night's…"

"I get it, Laze," Nexin said, patting her on the shoulder. As soon as her touched her, her runaway mouth mercifully stopped. "Right now, Sol and I are the only ones who can stand up to it – or get away from it if we need to. I don't know how much stronger Sol can get with his goddess asleep again, but I can feel there's room for me to grow. And I will. I promise."

"I know. I trust you," Laze said, most other thoughts fleeing her mind as Nexin spoke. He really was special. Maybe she should tell him that before he left? So he knew…

She shook her head and firmly put those thoughts – and emotions – in a small room in the back of her head and slammed the door shut. Now wasn't the time for that.

"Like we discussed yesterday," Laze continued, her voice more serious, "stay in touch with us. Our communications should cover a lot of ground, but not everything. We'll keep you updated on where we're going, but try to check in at least daily to give us an idea which direction you're going. Once we've connected up with the Pilish army – hopefully Tas – we'll give you directions towards any forces we hear about."

"Do you really think they'll welcome us with open arms?" Nidina asked. "The last Firestorm they met peeled apart one of their ships."

"She also saved them from the seawyrm," Laze pointed out. "Still, if we can find Tas and Macer, I think that's the best place to start."

"Where will you go from there?" Nexin asked. "I doubt you'll be sitting around just to tell me where I can find something to burn."

"More like incinerate from what I saw back in Wirock," Nidina mumbled.

"We can fly," Laze pointed out simply. "Which means we can cover a lot of ground. We'll work as scouts to help coordinate the fight to hold off the Depths – any of them – until El brings help. Our job here is just to hold out. Any damage we can do is a bonus.

"Once we have more support, we can coordinate the two forces for a counterattack. Push the Depths back off the mainland here, and all the way back to Wirock."

"I think you're going to do more than scout." Nexin eyed the top of the metallic tube Laze and Nidina both had looped over their shoulders.

Laze couldn't help but smirk as she turned her head to look at it. One of Felps's Personal Incendiary Cannons – PICs. Also known as Firestorm artillery. They weren't the same powerhouses as the original El had apparently tested, but these more reasonable versions had been used to great effect against the mutated Ignitio. Still, they were draining to use, with a dozen or so shots making Laze feel like she'd sprinted a marathon, but against the packs of hangnails and seawyrms? Their capacity for destruction more than made up for it.

"Maybe a bit more than scouting," she admitted. "These are more for emergencies than anything though. We'll still be getting more use out of our bows than anything else."

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"Which is why we brought extra bow-foci," Nidina said. "Wish we could've gotten some of that triple-forged-electrum-goodness El got though. She's so lucky."

"Maybe next time," Laze comforted her friend.

"Anyway, back to Wirock," Nidina said. "What are we going to do about the big ring? Even fighting there with all those little rings is a risk. Get too close and we'll get our Sparks sucked right out of us. And that just opens the doorway to big-daddy-Depths."

"Big-daddy-Depths?" Laze asked.

"New name. It fits, don't you think?"

"About as well as 'hangnail' does, I guess," Laze admitted. "As for the ring, we'll figure that out when…" she trailed off as a sound other than the waves reached her ears. It started with a distant pop, so faint it could've been her imagination at first, but then there was another. And another, then more. Along with the pops came distinct bangs, loud enough both Nexin and Nidina turned at the same time, having clearly heard them as well.

"What's that?" Nexin asked first.

"Pilish weapons," Nidina answered. "Their guns sound like that. Those louder ones must be the cannons – the Screamers – Tas was talking about. Reminds me of their warship shooting at us."

"The fort town!" Laze realized. "There was one close. Come on." With that, she… slowly… ignited her wings, the feeling like a flower blooming within her chest. With the coming blossom, Laze twisted the power of her Spark and separated it, sending it to the electrum nubs to produce her wings. The flow wanted to stay together – to stay with her Spark – but she practically manhandled it to send it where she needed.

It was always like this, her flames wanting to stay warm and burning comfortable in the center of her chest, even when she needed them elsewhere. Once she got the flames to her wings – or her weapons – they were happy enough to stay there, but it was always a struggle. One the other Firestorm didn't have to put up with, apparently.

She hadn't told many people about her… condition – though El and Nexin both knew – and of course her family. They'd all confirmed the process wasn't the same for them; their flames were happy to travel to the foci – or to wherever the burning hell El or Nexin wanted. Cheaters. No, Laze was just handicapped from the start. Broken.

Or, at least that's what she'd thought until recently. When El had hurt her arm – they'd talked about being broken. About being less than others. That conversation had brought tears to her friend's eyes, but not because of her own arm – but because she'd never realized Laze looked at herself that way.

Just the contrary, in fact. El had told her how proud she'd always been of Laze working through the difficulty. That every tenth of a second she shaved off igniting her wings was a victory. And, more than that, how she should stop looking at it as a disadvantage. She was doing something with her Spark nobody else was. So, how could she turn that hardship into a benefit?

She'd come up with something – and spent every waking minute before leaving refining it. Now might be the time to field-test it.

After she got into the burning sky.

Part of her still winced at how long it took her to bring her wings out compared to El and the others – Nidina and Nexin both already had theirs out – but it still took Laze another second and a half. It wasn't until her Spark fully 'bloomed' that her wings burst out of the electrum foci on her shoulder blades, and she leapt into the air.

Once she had her wings out, though, she managed to keep up with the others – though only because Nexin was holding back. Searing, plasma wings extended from his shoulders, and he gave off an aura like the sun itself. The air warped around him from the heat, and both Laze and Nidina pulled further off to the side, their flame armor actually activating to protect them from him.

When was the last time she'd needed protection from fire? The quick memory of El's mangled arm reminded her maybe she shouldn't be quite so complacent.

"There!" Nexin said, interrupting her thoughts.

Following his gesture, she easily spotted the fort town she remembered from the last time she'd been there – as well as the rushing horde of monsters streaming out of the sea.

"Looks like the Depths didn't take as long as continue their attack as we'd hoped," Nidina said.

"More than that, look at the east-wall," Nexin said.

"Is that… fog?" Laze asked, seeing lines of mist crawling up the wall opposite where the fiercest fighting was occurring. "That must be those blue guys. Tas didn't mention anything about them while we were traveling, so I bet the Pilish forces don't even know to watch for them."

"Sounds like it's time for us to rush in and save the day," Nidina said, a flaming bow igniting in one hand.

"Nexin," Laze said, looking at the man flying off to her left, the air around him popping in small fireballs as it super heated and burst. "Can you handle the west gate and the main assault?"

"With pleasure," Nexin said.

"Good. Nidina, we're taking those blue guys trying to sneak in the back door," Laze said, turning to the woman on her right. "Remember how dangerous they can be if we get in the fog. Since they don't expect us – like the Pilish don't expect them – it looks like they aren't trying to hide very well. I bet they're at the top of those rising fog pillars climbing the wall. Let's pick them off from a distance until they change their tactics."

"Sounds like a plan," Nidina answered.

"Go," Laze said, and there was a whoosh to her side as Nexin practically transformed into a solid beam of fiery plasma, rocketing ahead of the other two. The wake of his explosive acceleration pushed Laze off to the side, igniting her flame armor in response, and scarred the air as he travelled.

Why he didn't just do that stepping thing that seemed to teleport him was beyond Laze until…

BOOOOOOM!

Nexin hit the line of hangnails and seawyrms like an apocalyptic meteor. The initial impact annihilated everything within two-hundred feet of his landing, while a fiery shockwave expanded hundreds of feet further in every direction. Flames tore across the ground and up the walls of the fort, forcing even the defenders to dive back from the clawing flames. In the opposite direction, where the fire reached the rolling waves that seemed to be vomiting an endless swarm of monsters, it was even more dramatic. The water didn't warm. It didn't boil.

It evaporated.

Waves, water, and everything beneath simply erupted in a billowing cloud of scalding steam with an explosive force almost as powerful as Nexin's arrival.

"I didn't know hangnails could fly…" Laze said the only thing that made it from her shocked brain to her mouth. Monster bodies – and pieces of them – soared through the sky in all directions. And it wasn't just the hangnails, even whole seawyrms writhing through the air as they found themselves a hundred feet out of their element.

They didn't stick the landing.

"I'm so glad he's on our side," Nidina said, and Laze couldn't agree more.

Nexin's entrance had been devastating, and that was only the beginning. Within a few beats of Laze's racing heart, he lived up to the name Firestorm. He was everywhere on the battlefield, weaving between the monsters even as the artillery on the walls paused, entranced or terrified by the carnage.

Yeah, Nexin had that effect on people – but truly, this was beyond anything Laze had ever seen.

He really had been holding back.

Shaking her head to dispel the shock of seeing what the man was capable of, she turned her attention back to the pillars of fog climbing the east wall. Four of them, from what she could see, had almost reached the top. And when they got there, those blue humanoids would roll waves of their mist down into the town, which would allow their constructs to run rampant. Laze and Nidina had to stop them before that happened.

"Can you get the far two?" Laze asked, igniting a bow in her hand.

"You take the first one, I'll get the others," Nidina said. "You've got a better eye for the flow of battle. Kill yours, then go where you need to – or tell me where you need me. I'm the arrow, you're the bow."

Laze considered the option before nodding. It was a good plan. Within their wing – small thought it was – Nidina was definitely the second-best fighter after El. Then it would be Dayne, and finally Laze.

Nexin was in a class all his own, and comparing just wasn't fair to anybody.

Still, she had to do her part.

"Thanks, Nidina," Laze said. "Let's show them Nexin isn't the only Firestorm here."