Arc F1.9 | Chapter 36: Flames and Explosions

We move, like flames through the world, as liquid as those we pull from the sands of the aether, splattering hot and cold over our enemies.

I say—think—we, but I had noticed the girl gone. She swept away at some point, and had I not any awareness of exactly what it was those flames that I birthed were setting alight, I might have thought that I had snuffed her life out.

I know everything, however—I always know exactly what my flames have brushed over, destroyed. It is a secret I have kept to myself. Working alone is a boon; needing to manage the dead-ended minds of those who had offered their everything up to Fräthk a slight against the universe itself.

So, I’ve kept my secrets. Sometimes, I have wondered if Fräthk’s golden one knows so many of the secrets we keep—not just me, but dozens of us who would never dare give our owner more than the most mediocre of services. That woman is a strange one, although I have often found myself thinking that most of the women who work for Fräthk are a strange breed.

Fathers and mothers, men and women, can love the same, of course; yet, it so often seems that women love with a ferocity that few men can. A child calls out for their mother in distress and every woman looks up, even those who despise children. There is something in the call of a tiny voice through the world that tugs upon the heartstrings of all those who have the capacity to love. I do not think it some error in the genetics of men that leads them to continue on, as though no small voice called out in distress; indeed, the way Olivier watched the children, the way he seemed to surround them with some essence of pure love, proved that some men contained that capacity as well.

Perhaps it is a Lüshanian thing; a Baalphorian thing. I do not know, although I would like to. I would like to see all the souls of this world, laid out and true. Where has culture collided with biological need and create a harsh heart? A bleeding one? Something so entirely other that for us—all of us who have lived such small and miserable lives—the hearts and ethics and personalities that we are able to capture within the palms of our hands in friendship and love are barely even human.

“Renton likes you so much. I really can’t believe you didn’t notice!” the teenager had laughed, early in our journey when we were attempting to distract one another from the reality that we may never again see our friends—if they ever could be counted as friends to begin with. I truly had not noticed, but if I thought back to that man… I supposed I could see it, harsh and uncertain.

It would be nice to see that man unravelled, all these decades of cruelty peeled away until he could exist as something that was not the man I knew. Renton is not a terrible person, but like all of us, he is broken—the ire he so often aims at Porsq is proof enough of that. Were we out in the real world—free in a way I can no longer remember—I would not enjoy that boy’s abilities touching upon my mind; at the same time, I can see the kindness in his soft manipulations of our intentions.

We wake each day, unsure of what will lay before us as the hours roll on, and it is difficult to rise with the intention to make the best of the day. So often, I rolled from bed intent to burn myself out. Never was I able to follow through. Perhaps one day, I might have been able to cast myself in flames—burn everything in this rotting city down with me—but my lingering suicidal intentions died with Porsq’s arrival.

Some might say that child had no right to slip his fingers within my mind and tug those intentions deeper. I cannot even say they would be wrong; yet, that child is all kindness and if through his actions I am given a chance to grasp my freedom…

Of course, I will take it, and I will be grateful to that little boy for what he had done, regardless of the violation of it, regardless of how I will leave and hope to never see him again.

Kindness can be a cruel thing; kindness can be a knife through trust.

Shifting, I cast a net of flames around myself, burning the attack that attempted to reach for me away. My flames shift, becoming blades of searing light that scatter towards the shocking number of enemies who have appeared, none of whom I recognize.

Solo fighter or not, I do tend to recognize most of Fräthk’s people, if only because I have previously held a reputation for accidentally killing them. It was a purposeful thing, of course. Even on my last mission, I managed to burn two of Fräthk’s most loyal so badly that I will be surprised if they live, especially with the chaos setting through the city.

Some time ago, a rumbling overtook the city—a rumbling I knew well, having burned out the supports of many a building and watched it collapse down upon souls within. There was always something so satisfying about managing to destroy an entire building from so deep within that even Fräthk would not be able to tell it was my doing.

Hundreds of that monster’s people have been laid to rest by my flames, all without their knowledge. A few people know—Sireth knows most clearly, the two of us having become friends shortly after her daughter began to exhibit her irregular deviation. My own abilities and Anarch’s are in no way the same, yet, they share several similarities, the most notable of which is the danger they place we ourselves in.

Flames are a monster, my own body scattered with ribbons of red from when I was young, flames slipping free of my control. Shots of white exist here and there, along with brutal skewers through my body, all the result of some sizzling hot object finding itself free of gravity and a victim of its heat and the chaos of my flames. Even now, after decades of practice, I move with a mixture of skill and chaos that is actually a finely controlled manipulation of my body.

Flames are wild, the damage they cause random perfection that is so often typical. So, I move, knowing the reality of the normalcy of my skills.

A window exploding here.

Garbage catching alight and casting deadly fumes into the air there.

The rattle of screws, winding themselves free as metal bends with the overwhelming heat that is me.

All things to be avoided, while other things are more sudden.

The crackle of brickwork collapsing.

The suck of my flames, caught in some draft and being pulled somewhere I cannot see, towards objects I cannot know.

The breeze of a ventilation system, exuding something that I cannot name anything but a danger, a danger, a danger.

I shift, and my enemy shifts with me. I escape that strange breeze, quick steps taking me over the brickwork of the neighbourhood, mortar crumbling and melting under oppressive heat it cannot escape. I move. I move. I run.

My flames crash backwards, and my attacker is not free yet of that strange breeze, and whatever it is that flows from the building could be nothing but air, normal and nothing to worry about.

It is not air, and the world ignites, screams of my pursuer and those who seem aligned with their cause near drowning out the sound of rumbling. It is a strange rumbling, and while the district has been filled with the sounds of buildings collapsing both near and far for some time now, this is not that—this rumbling is something different. So many sounds sing through the city, each rarely heard on the streets, and yet, somehow placeable: the cacophony of collapsing buildings; the scream of core abilities and irregular deviations through the aether; willbrands cracking into new, deadly forms; and the keening of the dying and grieving.

Yet, while the things headed towards us are certainly more commonly heard, I imagine few people can place the source of the coming rumble.

Ironic, that—this reality in which the sound of destruction is more easily placed than that of a machine. It is as though such horrors are written into the core of human memory, understandable and fear-inducing to all who hear them. People do not yet know to fear the creations of that boy.

The screams continue, the smell of cooking flesh seeping through the air. With the city descending into chaos, how long will it take for food stores to run out? For the humans of the city to turn to the flesh of their own for their survival?

“Here you are, little one,” I can hear myself say in an ancient memory, over a decade past now, and is that a long time? It feels a million years ago within the cavern of boredom that is my mind. Life as a captive is so incredibly boring.

“What is it?” the little girl within my memory asked, but I did not tell her what it is we ate, attempting to survive the sudden collapse of the building as we waited for our rescuers to find us. She did not need to know how I kept us alive—did not need to know that her life, innocent and pure despite the horror that I now know has long existed within her, was worth more than one of her parent’s corrupt minions.

“Just meat. Now, eat.”

So, we ate.

So, every day since, I have dreaded those moments when the meat of animals must meet my lips.

So, when I am free of this putrid city, I do not think I will eat meat again. Long have I heard the complaints of other captives about the rotting vegetables and meagre grains we have so often been forced to sustain ourselves on. Give me a thousand years of rotting organics over the choicest of meat and the reminder of human sinew caught in my teeth.

The vehicle comes closer, and I feel the rush of it swerving through the streets. It is stupid, but I cannot help myself from glancing back as it—they—continue on. How strange, to see those two racing onwards while a child of chaos and destruction leaps off, and with a delicate roll that both does and does not suit the chaos within, twirls to kneel beside me, a grin cut across her features.

I continue watching the other two leave, confused as to how they found us, as to where they are going.

I will have to ask Anarch later. Currently, I must keep her from completely destroying the neighbourhood.

Hopefully, my previous companion has slipped away. I cannot feel her nearby, but my awareness is barely more than a stretch down the street, and I do not think Anarch’s much better.

“Does your mother know you are here?” I ask, gaze shifting from the alleyway where the other two have vanished. What a strange turn this day has taken, for us to be slipped free of our captivity and to find ourselves aligned with so many diverse souls.

“Kinda?” Anarch says, her eyes trained on the still screaming, still burning body of my pursuer. “They’re weird, right?”

“Yes,” I agree, eyes shifting to take in those who are not burning, not trying to save their companion, not attacking us. Instead, they stand and stare at the burning meat of the man. “This is not the first time they have behaved irrationally,” I add, explaining bits and pieces of all the experimenting the teenage girl did. Anarch oohs—comments that she had heard a bit about that person from her mother.

“Fräthk is like… really obsessed with her? Something about how she might be able to ‘put the puzzle pieces together, if she actually cooperated?’ I tried to have my mom ask if I could meet her—it is her, right? Fräthk always used him, but you use her, and Fräthk has always been so weird about gender and definitely isn’t trustworthy about gender… or anything? Seriously, can they be trusted about anything?” Anarch rambled, and yes, I thought that despite their near-decade age difference, Anarch and the teenager would get along quite well. They could both talk until the world ended, Curtisal sitting and watching them with that strange gaze of his.

Anarch was easy to understand: she was uncontrolled energy and vibrance. Her friend was a strange creature, part nervous energy, part monster.

“Likely not,” I comment, holding out a hand to accept Anarch’s xphern and look over her messages with her mother. The girl was telling the truth, at least: her mother kinda knows that she is there with me—as in, she knows that Anarch, Curtisal, and Vtraní are now aligned with Olivier and Emilia’s groups.

Fascinating, and I would so love to take a moment to read through the many messages filling the chats; however, before we have any mere chance to attempt the making of a plan, Anarch is off, surging towards our attackers, her fingers already reaching for the chest of one.

Thus, we move, like flames and explosions, shattering through the city.