Flizz hissed under her breath as flickering embers of violet danced within her eyes. Her body shook under mad giggles of excitement and murderous malevolence fueling her fury. Everything had gone so perfectly well~! Those wannabe Guards hadn’t wasted any time to get into the way of Babylon’s little lap dogs, turning it into a wonderful battle royal for the pat to the centre! Oh, but they had already lost. Everything had gone exactly as planned with both groups far too busy fighting a stalemate to have time for interrogations. The possibility for diplomacy smothered in the cradle when it could have worked wonderfully! Oh, the irony was delicious to Flizz. She would’ve loved to spill the beans on everything they had done wrong. On their little tattletales~! But…

A searing white pain pierced through her arm and Flizz winced. Her eyes flashed with boiling hatred, the embers within gleaning into smouldering disks of violet that encompassed them fully. She glanced to the side, checking on Haggard’s unconscious form. Light red tinged the shallow waters as it dripped from his body, crimson like blood soaked his face, dripping from his mouth, nose, ears and blanked eyes.

Her grip tightened around the makeshift bandaged wrapped around her arm, stained deep red with her own blood as it soaked through the cloth and dripped in the waters.

…everything had gone wrong in such a horrible, wonderful way.

—Earlier—

“Time to get going~ Everything to get ready for our wonderful declaration of war!” Flizz laughed cheerfully, clapping into her hands as she turned towards Haggard.

“About time…” The tiger wolf muttered annoyed under his breath and hopped to his feet. The last few hours had bored him out of his mind. Nothing to do but sit there and watch some losers sit around and squawk dumb shit though Flizz’ gates. He narrowed his eyes at her to hurry up already.

Flizz smirked amused, squealing internally at how cute he was. Look at him come so far in being menacing! Though, he really should be dealing out more death threats. But his glare was a good start!

“Oh, I’m going to love this~!” Flizz grinned madly, her lips stretching impossibly and disconcertingly wide as reality slid open at her command. A window in space leading right to the basin of the Crystal Well onto one of the cat walk lining the crater wall.

Everything happened far too quickly and time seemed to slow to a crawl just as they leaped through the gate. It was a minute flicker of movement near the corner of her eyes that made her freeze. No, not really movement but a shift in colour. At first it was just a small dot of red darkening the water near the crystal pillar that then rapidly expanded. Spark of dark blue and iridescent pink danced around the spreading discolouration.

All around, the crystals within and around the water began to sparkle and shine like spinning prisms refracting the light under the bright midday sun. It was a phenomenon that she noticed multiple times before, randomly occurring from an interaction of ambient Amber with one these charged crystals. Only now they lit up the entire hollow and the rainbow coloured light shifted into red.

Within mere moments all the water had turned red, the colour slowly diluting to a lighter hue with ever more water consumed. And from the lake rose upwards a living mass of liquid

Malevolence. Flizz could feel the hatred that the creature exuded so freely. Potent. All consuming. Erupting to a blaze from a single spark in a single instance. It was wild, familiar and yet utterly alien. There was no mistake to be had, for it bore down on her… and Haggard.

Not even a second had passed since the water wraith had corrupted the waters. Flizz turned… but it had already moved. Spikes of blood red liquid pierced after them through the window in reality. Both she and Haggard were still only partially through, hammering her ability to slam the window shut in time. And as they pierced through the window, the world seemed to flicker and glitch.

“Abyss Fucking Damnit!” Flizz cursed loudly, their bodies skipping hard over uneven ground as they were spat out in another part of the cavern instead of the well’s basin. Rolling to her knees, it took her a full second to process the deep cut along her arm. The wound was gaping open, white bone visible and nicked deeply. Blood began to rapidly pour out of her wound, dyeing her bone red as it dripped onto the ground.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But her focus whirled immediately towards the creature that had rushed through her now crackling portal after them.

A twisting, grotesque form of shifting water rose from the ground. It’s colouration more of a dark pink by now as it quickly absorbed shallow water covering the cavern floor. And held tight within its grasp, struggling to free himself, was Haggard. His eyes were wide, flailing and futilely tearing through the blood red appendage that was grasping him by the face. Panic stood clear within his eyes as it full engulfed his head, smothering his nose and mouth to slowly suffocate him. Crimson bolts danced and surged around the tiger wolf as he desperately reached out fro his Arc only for them to be uselessly absorbed into the wraith’s watery form. If anything, the wraith seemed to grow stronger with every bolt.

“Oh, you better leave my darling alone~!” Flizz hissed out, sound dangerous sweetly. Her eye twitched and throbbed as she ignored her grievous wound for the moment.

Fuelled by her desire to protect Haggard, Flizz poured all her power into her Arc and moved. Reality warped unstable around her as she was barely able to keep her portals locked onto her target correctly.

It shouldn’t have been able to follow the rapid flicker of portals, aiming herself against its body. And yet it not only seemed to perfectly predict her every movement, it reacted instantly to them as well. A fact Flizz noticed too late and it was all she could do, eyes widened, to break her kick as it used Haggard as its meat shield.

Her foot still connected with her Darling’s head, knocking him out and through the creature’s form. But it had also freed him from its suffocating grasp and Haggard slamming into it had disoriented it for the very first time, struggling to regain cohesion with Haggard still inside of it.

Not hesitating for even a moment, Flizz reached out with her injured arm, grabbing Haggard and tearing him free. Ripping open another portal, she felt her laceration burn painfully. Foreign Amber - the creature’s own? - burned against her own. Breathing heavy with hatred, Flizz cursed as she had to call onto her precious reserves to keep control over her portals.

It ripped open beneath them and they slammed painfully into the metal grating of the cat walk near the top of the basin. Despite the pain lancing through her Flizz couldn’t help but smirk with malice, a mad giggle rippling past her lips.

Because with the rest of her power she had made sure that her newest problem would take care of the other annoyances.

—Present—

They were safely tugged away at near the top of the basin, allowing Flizz to watch in delight as those naive morons now had to deal with the monster instead. Water was nearly everywhere around the cave, fueling its growth, and the Amber crystals were swallowed by it up as well. More and more it had begun to crackle with energy surging through his amorphous mass. And at the same time, Flizz could feel her arm burn more. It was more than just being infect with its foreign Amber, she could feel her very strength being slowly sapped away.

Creating another portal in this sate? Her Arc didn’t even respond to her call anymore.

“Oh, they won’t be happy~” Flizz giggled sardonically, a dark smile on her face as she knew that without her Arc the current plan was a complete bust.

She could still feel her reserves of Hatred but the poison within her body lusted after it as well. She had seen how it had absorbed Haggards nascent use of them and there was doubt that she would just be fueling its growth trying to reach out.

Glancing back towards the battle, she smirked as the creature had grown to the size of an entire apartment building, towering halfway up to the cavern ceiling. None of the two groups had managed to damage it in any way that mattered, turning into literally striking water when it didn’t just casually open holes within its form to let them pass through uselessly.

Its own strikes were more like massive waves, washing away Guards and Babylon operators alike.

Flizz glowered angrily as she noted it hadn’t used its piercing spikes against them, barely even hurting them at all.

And then suddenly it stopped moving, the towering wave of water collapsing into a central sphere from which dozens of tendrils rose. All of the, turning to stare at a single spot above the ground. It didn’t even react when a rapidly spinning ball howled through the air, fired from Kass’ canon, and struck its form. The water hissed and steamed as it cut a hole through the water, a tendril collapsing, only for it quickly regenerate. Burst out of it back, the ball slammed into the ceiling with a deafening whine, sparks raining down as it dug into the stone before finally dispersing.

“Interesting.” Flizz mused with twinkling eyes as she felt space suddenly bend and morph. Even with her access to her portals blocked, it appeared the other senses granted by her Arc still worked.

By now the two groups had their attention drawn the vague spot as well. And then there was nothing vague about its exact location anymore

Golden and blue energy began to crackle around the tiny spot… and then it exploded, expanding outwards into a solid sphere of blue and gold, blurring and dividing like two immiscible liquids mixing. Stone, steel, steam and water crashed to the ground as the shell flickered and disintegrated. Gravity once more took hold of its contents.

And crashing to the ground alongside rubble and debris arrived the unexpected group of six.