When Arson finally managed to catch Almarine, she had already lifted the tremendous tank of water. A water Arson now suspected wasn’t normal, as runes could be seen through the sections of the tank that were made of a glass material.
Arson didn’t run into the green flame building, but did choose to run around to the side where Almarine had exited.
The orphan mother opened the tank, for a geyser to free itself from the top, and large hands of mana formed from the spray of water. The heat seeking hands were designed to put out fires, and most of the fires she’d created were easily put out, while others had had more than enough time to grow.
Though Almarine had noticed all of these details, it took Arson much longer to grasp the situation at hand. He had been captivated by the hands the size of the orphanage doors, that pressed themselves flat against the flames around him. With the exception being the chimney.
Many of the hands collected themselves above and around the glowing pillar. The eventual dog pile of hands was enough to blot out the brilliance from the flames temporarily, but a breath later light and ripples of heat could be seen bubbling through the water like fire seen through stain glass windows.
Arson started to believe that the hands would lose their battle, the more bubbles and steam formed in the air above the chaotic situation. Then a cloud formed slowly and he watched it rain, a large raincloud completing the job.
The volcanic spray of flames died completely, and the hands dispersed to put out more fires.
Arson walked up to Almarine and tugged on her dress. The cloth-like material no longer on fire. The rain spreading as the hands worked enough to start to drizzle on them both.
“I’m sorry momma Almarine.” The woman’s brow furrowed and she pointed at the roof, this wasn’t your fault child, someone got ahold of some fireworks they shouldn’t have and went a little overboard it happens,” said Almarine tasseling his hair when she spoke.
“No I didn’t, I found a bag full of papers that had amazing portraits of different areas on the grounds around the orphanage, they were already in the trash so I assumed that burning them wouldn’t be an issue,” said Arson, noticing that Winter and other Graveyard officers approached in his periphery.
“You did this?” The woman’s yell was enough to make Arson take a step back. The actions of Almarine the day prior still fresh in Arson’s memories.
“You did this?”
Arson shrugged, as there was a lot of damage done by Almarine running around on fire and smashing through walls, a feat that Arson wondered at completely, as he’d seen Almarine struggle to break a single wall just recently.
Didn’t she have to use that hatchet to save Xani from drowning?
“What do you mean?” asked Almarine, with a shrug of her own.
“Well, I did burn the papers, but all this extra damage was not me…” Almarine glared back at Arson, and he nodded.
“But I could see how you feel that at the root of things I may be the cause of—“
“Cheeky little brat, go to your room!” Arson ran from the scene and forced down the urge he had to go and seek out one of the many locations he’d memorized. He didn’t want to anger Almarine any further, but didn’t know how long the plan that had bloomed in his mind could be resisted.
…
Winter approached his ex-wife slowly, and tapped her on the shoulder. The woman didn’t look away from Arson as he ran off, and Winter was bothered by the concern she displayed.
“How do I punish a child that I don’t want to? How do I punish a child in a way that they will learn? Why do we even punish children? Is that what makes them resilient to listening, the association with mental or physical pain we connect to how they learn?” Winter listened as Almarine mumbled to herself. His worst fear coming to life before his very eyes.
“You look good Mari. Have you been keeping up with your building requirements?” asked Winter. His ex-wife had made an oath to suppress her power to the best of her capability, but if the woman made herself busy enough, and didn’t think of the requirement, the system often let her go unattended. The primary reason for their separation.
“No, Winter, I have not, but I will tend to that today. Is there anything else that you need?” asked Almarine. The flatscreen he bought her in hand in a blink, before she crushed the device. A billion credits crumbled like sand in her grip.
Winter had seen her mana yesterday, but for her to be able to break the flatscreen today, was troubling for the man. He knew the true might of his ex-wife, and hoped she wasn’t ascending regardless of the draw being put on her mana by the orphanage grounds.
“No I just worry for you, that's all. I don’t want anyone to think you are taking a run at the Oligarchs again. We may have kings and queens, but we know who the real powers are,” said Winter.
“Ha, what do you know of kings and queens, child?” The question froze Winter. The second reason that their marriage failed. She saw him as a child, but that was only because she saw everyone as children.
There may only be two people older than you in this realm, but I captured your heart for a reason.
“Funny Grandma, but you look younger than Rhythm right now. You're around a lot more orphans than you think, Mari, look around you. You held this event, but did you consider how much life force you’d be around at that point, not to mention you are currently in the center of the strongest to come from what I can see.” The statement Winter made was clear. He knew what her core needed to grow, and he also knew how the slightest slip on her part could end with the loss in more than just a few lives.
“I don’t lust for what you people do,” spat Almarine. The rain soaked her hair, and Winter felt the threat like a beaten dog would. Only Almarine never hit him.
“It's okay if you want to feel your power, Mari, but don’t presume to act as if you do not have the same true drive within any other cultivator.”
“I have what they lust for and have found what it means to live immortal. I live now for a scale, a weighted balance for an objective good that may or may not be the problem,” said Almarine. In that moment, everyone looked up, while Almarine only looked at her raised hand.
Above her in the air, all the hands summoned by the ancient artifact Almarine used, tore through the air and collided with one another. A new hand held above them all, massive in its proportions, and in a mimicry of the Keeper below.
“She’s really going to do it, isn’t she,” asked one of the recon team members before he took a single step back.
"Mari, don’t—" was all Winter managed to say before the hand came down with a speed like lightning. The sound of the destroyed building was that of an explosion, the fire and structure both snuffed out and flattened in an instant.
In the moment between the hand lifting back into the air for another rapid descent all that could be heard were screams and the rubble of the building that had once been, falling to the ground below.
“If I wanted power, I’d walk into your city centers, and become what defined your perception of power,” said Almarine in a whisper. Winter heard every word and didn’t move even as his team ran for the exit portal and the area begun to evacuate.
The Graveyard members blared the dragon siren from their flatscreens, but none there needed another reason to run as the second building was flattened.
The tantrum Winter knew, wouldn’t result in any casualties, but the fear of those around would also power a variant mana type Almarine was eternally connected to.
Winter let this continue, but in a moment of awareness, asked the question that now bothered him the most. He would have no other opportunity, and actions spoke louder than words.
“Is this how you teach your newest disciple to solve their problems?” She’d destroyed seven buildings by that point, but frozen the moment he’d finished speaking. He sighed.
“What is it this time, maybe he can fly already, wouldn’t that be grand, or what, maybe he can teleport at his age, I’d break the law for that, or maybe—“
“You and I can’t look at all of Cel's mural at once,” said Almarine. The hands above once more allowed to do their jobs normally and became a flock once more.
“I could tell you a dozen other things, but I believe that should be enough,” stated Almarine finished. And it was, Winter missed his daughter, and couldn’t fathom being able to look at an entire realm at once.
“You're lying…” His ex-wife met his eyes at his words, her head tilting slightly.
“You truly do believe I would say anything to prove a point, but I’m sorry, Winter, this is no jest, just fact.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, all of this was for naught, he learned nothing but where to learn, and one of yours is coming to adopt him in a fortnight at the next adoption day,” remarked Almarine, her agitation made the air grow denser and Winter was forced to step back to breathe.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do what’s necessary to make them comfortable,” said Almarine. A nearby building started to regrow itself in a matter of breaths, and Winter felt better at the sight of the building being reconstructed, but nervous that the pressure around him didn’t diminish.
Many buildings begun to repair themselves but the weight that felt like intensifying gravity grew. This made Winter’s new worries far more troubling than his old ones.
Winter once suspected that one of Almarine's abilities would allow the needs of her other abilities to grow not in immediate power or scale, but sufficiency. Everyone needed more mana to grow, but he suspected Almarine could change that for herself, and most likely had already.
“Have you just been, have you just been playing along this whole time?” Winter was so far away that he had to yell, and the pressure had grown to the point that he started to run freely back toward the exit portal. The edges of the gateway started to fade and Winter was forced to jump through before it managed to fold in on itself under the pressure of Almarine’s power.
Winter rose to his feet once on the other side of the portal. Brushed himself off and looked around at all the bewildered faces.
“What?” Many gathered there looked around at one another before an officer built up the courage to ask the question on all their minds.
"You were married to that—"
“Watch your tongue, that is the mother of my children, and I will drop a portal on your head and leave you with her before I let you speak ill of her whilst she cannot defend herself,” said Winter. The bite in his voice meant to be playful, but his anger bled through. He wanted his wife back, but feared he’d never be enough to make her happy. As happy as he could tell she must be when around the young boy named Arson.
Even as she’d spoken about punishments, her smile in his direction as he ran to his room was filled with a pride that he hadn’t seen expressed by his ex-wife in centuries.
“Sorry sir, it won’t happen again,” said the same officer. The others around quickly found ways to busy themselves, and Winter pulled his flatscreen from his pocket once more and was moments away from sending Almarine a video recording before he remembered she’d crushed the device he bought for her.
“How am I supposed to show you what you were getting into now,” said Winter under his breath. The video of Arson touching a portal's edge unaffected. The threshold of his own portals equivalent to a shredder with the power to turn matter to dust and sand. His brother Amethyst’s portals were safe from top to bottom, but Arson’s unfazed interaction with Winter’s own portal was alarming all by itself; made even more exceptionally dangerous by what Almarine had told him the boy was capable of.
“Sparks, Mari, what am I going to do with you?”
…
In his room Arson paced. He ignored the violence outside as Almarine destroyed buildings and rampaged. He ignored the sounds of orphans scurrying about the orphanage to escape Almarine's wrath. He even ignored the screams of cultivator scions fleeing from the flames that still managed to spread.
Anger grew as Arson’s internal monologue went from cheerful and optimistic to self doubting and filled with rage. He didn’t know how exactly he was the cause of what was happening all around him, but felt the weight of it all on his shoulders.
This day of silence the young man was exposed to wouldn’t normally be seen as traumatic, but with the intensity involved, and Arson’s unfamiliarity with Almarine’s anger, the emotion of rage was taken and internalized, rather than expressed through stronger coping mechanisms than the unhealthy option of distancing oneself from the problem in hopes that it would solve itself.
The following day's sunrise came, and Arson felt less anger, and more focus. He’d spiraled through the night, from a place of senselessness, until more sensible thoughts gained supremacy and left him upset with himself.
He could have done many things differently, and promised himself that his plans would be more thorough in the future.
So he began to plot a path to complete an investigation of all the places within the orphanage that had been emphasized on the maps he’d found.
He would become a cultivator, and at any cost. He may have missed out on the treasure hunt, but with what he’d gained, Arson pledged to himself that he would one day be able to protect his home, his friends, and the person to love him the most, the closest thing he had to a mother, Almarine.
Flashes of drawn locations started to emerge once more as he looked out his window at places he’d once feared, but now knew held opportunity. Chances that he would need to capitalize on to give himself the best knowledge and capabilities to learn and grow on his path to immortality.
“Since it is all my fault, I’ll make `sure to clean it up myself,” said Arson with one last look out his window at the destroyed buildings and burning landscape.
“Come on Arson,” said the toddler to himself. “You have a lot of work to do…”