FA Chapter 26 Red Disaster
"Ever since I took this seat as the Forger president in the association, I have continuously lobbied to have every single human on this planet granted an awakening serum. Why? Because I am selfless? Hah!"
Musana shook his head upon those words as if the mere insinuation was a joke.
Bosingwa's gaze upon the man failed to connect him with the legend he had always known. The man was showing his true colors at this point, and it was being broadcasted live, to the entire planet and the colonies up on Mars and the Moon.
A criminal had ushered in a new era. That alone made him think of the popular theory in the virtual space, one where they theorised that Musana had simply been in the right place at the right time to have gotten the good fortune to become the first Forger. Now, Bosingwa was starting to believe it.
"Many people have been hindering my grand plan! But after tonight, I don't think anyone is going to have the capability of stopping it."
Bosingwa tried to talk, wanting to ask a question, one which was burning in his chest, only to discover that even when his mouth moved, there was no sound. The man had taken away the ability to speak by changing the settings!
"Ah! Before I forget, I am resigning as the Forger Association president. Good luck on finding someone to fill my shoes!"
With a last ominous chuckle, the man's silhouette vanished from the stage, leaving behind a dumbfounded and shocked audience. The repercussions of Musana's speech were going to be felt. Of that, Bosingwa was sure. Chaos was coming.
His heart had shattered in a million pieces, so, without further ado, Bosingwa logged out of the virtual space, his awareness appearing back into his body, where he was plopped down onto his sofa, with his gaze out the window and towards the center of the cityscape.
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10:58pm
Muliro stood before a building. Her hands were tucked within the pockets of her hood, which was covering up the red gem on her forehead. She just stood there, gazing upon the entrance of the building while contemplating multiple ways in which to make her entrance.
A smile widened her lips as she reminisced on Taka's ugly face upon losing the Rock-Paper-Scissors match. He had been a formidable opponent, yet she had managed to emerge victorious, allowing her the chance to take the first shot a Musana in the first ten minutes after this hour.
She had been within the crowd, listening to the man's words, but hadn't found anything worth her importance. All those shocking reveals were unimportant to her, who was only left with less than an hour on the planet.
Instead, it was the battle ahead that was worth her attention. Her heart was racing with excitement in anticipation.
The speech had ended, and if that woman's words were true, then Musana was waiting for them to act. She could feel an intense will to battle within the air. It clung to the top of the building like a parasitic cloud. Only she, and a few could feel it. It was the result of spiritual energy interlacing with a person's emotions.
As it clocked 11:00pm, her hand slid out of the pockets of the hoodie, before lowering the hood upon her head, exposing her to the multitude of beings using the street, bot and man alike.
But none so much as expressed surprise or shock as body modifications had become very very common in this era.
She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with an excess of air, after which she expelled all of it in an exhale.
[I am the origin of flame]
She recited the phrase within her mind, one which was supposed to be with another two, but the red gem within her forehead had taken up the other two slots.
The gem, previously dim, lit up like a sun, causing temporary blindness to the passerbys and a scorching feeling within Muliro's mind and body.
Then everything changed within her eyes in just a single instant. Her previously normal gaze was replaced with something akin to heat vision, but more vivid.
The pedestrians became no more than humanoid orange beings, and the robots only had a faint presence within her gaze because of the little amount of heat they were giving off.
The building itself was a gigantic mass of interlaced orange, with some spots even turning a lighter shade of red. She couldn't see herself, but she was sure that she had turned into a mass of flames in a humanoid form.
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With a thought, the flames around her body started rotating anti-clockwise, with the conflagration growing and becoming faster with each rotation until it became a flame tornado that devoured everything around her, from the people, to the inanimate objects. Metal from robots and transport vehicles melted as it spun around within the flames, while that which couldn't handle the heat simply turned into ashes, even the humans around. Nothing managed to impede its growth.
Upon growing to a certain size, it started to eat into the building while she rose within it, making it to the top, where it was still rising, trying to match the height of the building, where she was sure her destined opponent was waiting.
"Musana!" She excitedly roared his name. Muliro lacked the vocal cords for it, but by some unknown law, vibrations within the air had been created, matching her original flesh and blood voice perfectly!
Upon reaching the top, floating upon her large flame tornado, whose girth had reached a point where it had devoured even the road below her, even making contact with the building opposite Musana's own, her heat vision spied a figure upon the roof, one who was redder than the rest of the people below and within the building.
The bright white orb within the humanoid's hand gave him away as Musana. He was the only one who wielded the Sun as his weapon after all.
The years she had spent in training, all culminated into this moment. Facing off against one of the strongest Forgers on the planet. And since he had been a prisoner, a murderer too! That meant that he had danced with death himself multiple times! A worthy opponent.
Muliro grinned as she beheld the solitary reddish-orange form upon the roof.
"I believe you must be my destined opponent, right?"
She started a conversation. Even though she only had ten minutes as a headstart before the others joined in, Muliro still wanted to see whether the man was really going to be a great opponent. And conversation was one of the ways to judge that.
"Don't disappoint me, chosen tinder."
That was all the man said before his red limb hurled the bright sphere, no more than the size of a ball, towards her.
An attractive force, one greater than any she had ever felt before pulled at her flames. And like a river, it started sucking them up like a whale sucking water, where they orbited it before joining with those already on its surface.
Muliro instantly became cautious and wary. Though, she still didn't feel fear and terror. With an intention of will, some of her flames separated from her body, forming a spinning disk atop the palm of her flaming hand, which spun around at such speeds that the heat increased to the level where it was almost as bright as the orb of yellow-white Musana had hurled out.
With a flex of her arm, she threw it at the orb, with the attractive force helping it find its target, upon which both exploded in an explosion of flame with a diameter of just a few meters, smaller than she would have wanted, but it still did its job. Which was taking care of Musana's threatening opening move.
Before the explosion settled though, she pushed through the sphere of flames, which shrunk upon her as she absorbed it. This was her power, one where she had jurisdiction over all things related to flame. A mere explosion wasn't enough to prevent that.
She was even sure that if that sun sphere had lacked that attractive force, she might have wrestled control over it from Musana.
After landing upon the roof, she only maintained the barest sliver of attention on the flame tornado, while the rest of it was directed upwards, where Musana was floating.
"Interesting! Basically a queen of flames. Or should I call you an empress of flame?"
Through her spiritual awareness, Muliro heard the man's words, yet she didn't deign to answer. The time for small talk had ended.
With an intention of will, a flame in the form of an arm thick cord split off from her fire form, and transformed into something akin to a snake, snapping towards the airborne Musana, only for something entirely dark to her scenes to block it. A small burst of her spiritual powers enlightened her to the thing. It was a solid spiritual wall.
Her flame snake had dug deep, but ultimately had failed to breach the solid construct, with its momentum spent.
She transformed the head into a drill and rotated it, ultimately destroying the entire defence, only for her gaze to see nothing where previously there had been a Musana.
But a smirk formed upon her flaming lips since she already knew where he was. This form had given her a near perfect 360° view of her surroundings... So when Musana's form condensed behind her, with that sun-like sphere in his hands, she had already seen him. And not just after his appearance, even before, when he had traveled through the air to his current position.
He pushed the orb toward her back, probably thinking that she still had the same vulnerabilities as a human, but he was going to be sorely mistaken!
With as much spiritual energy as she could afford, she firmly resisted the orb's pull, making a hole through her flames right around where it was supposed to make contact before her arm which was supposed to have been facing towards the front, slithered towards the back, with the flaming palm just a few inches away from the man's face.
From within her body, flames were directed towards that arm, concentrated and potent enough that they created a bulge wherever they passed before reaching the palm.
'Got you! Now let's put your criminal background exposition to the test!'
Muliro had always admired a certain attack from the mythical dragons, their dragon's breath. At first, she had thought of simply compressing the flames in a thin line, like a laser, but then concerns of Musana dodging had weighed down upon her mind. So she had decided to go with the flashiest attack she loved.
And boy was it glorious!
A cone of flame burst out of her hands, like a raging river, engulfing the man where he stood, before merging with the flame tornado, then incinerating the top 70 floors of the building opposite Musana's.
"You placed a trap and a moral test."
"And I thought that had offed you."
Muliro spoke even as she admired her handiwork. Even though the man was now a few meters behind her, she could sense him as well as if he had been standing right where she was facing.
'I wanted all of it to vanish though.'
She lamented while gazing at the destruction she had caused. The building right across Musana's had had almost 70 whole floors turned to ash, only leaving behind red hot support beams that were slowly melting. Even just before her feet, the rest of the place Musana had been standing in before had vanished within the blaze, making it so that she could see within the floor below.
Even with that minor disappointment, her face spotted a grin. This was it! This was true power!