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Bel struggled against her bonds as she rolled over the edge of the platform. She snarled at Technis’ soldiers as she dropped out of view, but they wore the smug looks of hunters watching a wild animal bleeding out. She thrashed angrily at the sight, but the wooden rings that squeezed her limbs together resisted her brute force and her liquify ability.
I’ve only got one choice, she thought as she fell.
Bel hadn’t tried mixing spirits twice in a row before. In the past, one transformation was enough to deal with her problems. Reaching for the ability felt wrong to her, like the times she’d injured herself trying to keep up with Beth’s harsh training. Fatigue in her muscles and core made her hesitate, but gravity and the field of flames below her banished her doubts.
Bel used her mix spirits ability a second time, trusting her magma snake to get her out of the hopeless situation.
Anything is better than cooking to death, right?
Her transformation didn’t come smoothly or painlessly this time. Her body burned as it slowly shifted. She barely noticed the impact of the ground, and the Incinerator’s flames were nothing compared to the lava flowing through her throbbing arteries. Bel screamed, and screamed again, until her screams grew into outraged roars.
Her thoughts dissolved into incoherence as she completed her transformation, and she followed her instincts in a blind rage. Her skin smoldered and cracked as lava flowed through her veins, finally burning through the wooden shackles the bound her. She roared with victory as she stood and flexed her arms, unbothered by the surrounding inferno.
A small voice of reason reminded her that she needed to be careful, so she manipulated her armor to form a helmet with two long horns, and infused it with enough heat to make the points glow. Then she charged the platform, ramming her head into it like a mindless beast.
The small voice in the back of her mind had something to say, but she didn’t care. She swung her arms against the rocks, beating against them in a frenzied rage.
The small voice reminded her that she had abilities, and this time she listened. She barked with laughter and drove a powerful liquid shockwave into the stones, injecting hot magma through most of the platform. With its underside turned to liquid, the top layer began to slide off.
She could hear the cries of alarm and dismay from the soldiers on top, and they filled her molten heart with joy. When she looked up though, she realized that the rock would slide down onto her. The tingle of panic she felt cleared the mindless haze from her thoughts. She turned away and ran.
Is this how a lumberjack feels when he drops a tree onto his own head? she wondered as she pumped her legs.
Her form was powerful, but bulky, and each footfall of her large, molten feet threatened to trip her to the ground. There was a loud crunch that she more felt than heard, and she desperately threw her body forward to avoid being crushed. She struck the barren, scorched ground and slid across the loose soil, rolling with her momentum as she pushed for every last bit of distance. Then a rain of debris smashed into the ground around her. A heavy chunk of something solid bounced from her helmet, and a few more pieces peppered her body, but she thought that she was mostly unscathed.
She looked up and was dismayed to see that Technis’ soldiers had survived. Worse than they, they were actually fine. Some among their number had guided the rock with their abilities, while the Incinerator had quelled the flames around them.
She faced the group of twenty or thirty soldiers and snarled. The Incinerator flicked his fingers, and a cloud of glowing embers danced through the air to strike her body. She could feel them burning against her skin, but her nature resisted the attack.
She stomped the ground with her feet and roared with fury – how dare this creature challenge her with his pathetic flames? He was just a fleshy water bag, but she was a spirit of fire and molten rock! Her gaze narrowed to the Incinerator and she charged.
The little voice in the back of her mind reminded her that the spear wall in front of the fire manipulator was actually the bigger threat, and, at the last moment, reason won out. She dove to the side and rolled under a forest of stabbing spears. Stone barriers rose out of the ground to impede her progress, but she dodged around them, searching for a way to outmaneuver the group and circle to their unprotected flank. The shields and spears rotated with her though, and she couldn’t find a way past them.
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Worse still, she was slowing down. She could feel it, a heaviness that wanted to pull her to the ground, that wanted her to stand still and be pierced by one of the glowing spear tips that were coming closer and closer to her. She wanted to move away, but she realized that the stone barriers were building up behind her, slowly herding her forwards into certain death.
She faked moving in one direction and desperately dodged in another, but didn’t make it more than two steps before a spear tripped her legs. She tensed as she tumbled to the ground, already rolling away from the spears at the moment of contact. She quickly bumped into a low stone wall, and found herself pinned between it and the spears coming in her direction. Behind the spearmen, she could see the Incinerator and a pair of stone manipulators lifting their hands, reading to continue caging her in if she managed to break free of their trap.
This is hopeless, she realized.
Then there was a flash of wings and the Incinerator’s head exploded in a beautiful shower of blood, bone, and gray matter. Bel smiled wearily as Cress landed behind the distracted soldiers. The winged warrior’s feet thudded into the ground, and her momentum carried her past the corpse of her first victim. She planted her foot and pivoted her body to deliver a backhanded swing of her hammer to one of the stone manipulators, killing him before he knew what was happening.
As she came to a halt, Cress unleashed a Siren’s Shriek, deafening and disorienting the closest soldiers.
Using the distraction of Cress’ assault, Oculaire landed at the soldier’s unguarded side. She danced through their ranks with her long-handled axe, deflecting errant blows with a small buckler shield. Heads rolled and limbs fell, and the soldiers’ discipline began to crack.
When Orseis showed up at the head of a band of scrattes, screeching in an ear-grating approximation of the little green creatures’ war cries, Technis’ fighters turned to flee.
Bel knew that she should go after them, but she let go of her transformation instead and slumped to the ground instead. She pushed her back against a nearby rock that a moment ago had been part of a cage to trap her and stared at the fighting.
“I am so tired,” she mumbled to herself, justifying her inaction.
She watched with helpless concern as the scrattes worked their way through the buildings, diving into doorways and windows before rushing back out again moments later. A minute later, Cress returned to the courtyard, her armor sprayed with blood.
“All done?” Bel asked.
Cress nodded and swung her hammer for emphasis. “It was easy. Once we saw the people on the wall collapsing we rushed over, and the resistance on our way in was light. We lost a few scrattes, but not many.”
The warrior gorgon knelt next to Bel and examined her with concern. “I’m sorry that we were so slow. Orseis wanted to charge in, but I insisted that we scout ahead and move carefully.”
Bel shrugged limply. “It’s fine. That’s the smart thing to do.”
Bel rubbed at her aching legs, then winced and rubbed at her aching arms. “I don’t recommend charging in without a real plan. Only dummies would do that.”
She glanced at Sparky. The magma snake was hanging down the side of her face, weary and embarrassed.
Cress grinned. “It all worked out, though. And I can tell Manipule that you were very cautious so you won’t get a scolding later.”
Bel groaned at the thought of the empathetic gorgon fretting away over her injuries.
Cress laughed and bounced back to her feet. She spun around, looking over the buildings. “So this is the abandoned town where we will live? I like it. There’s a wonderful view of the water that I saw when I was flying around.”
“Abandoned?” Bel questioned. “Other than the soldiers?”
Cress nodded. “From what we could see. The other gorgons are with the scrattes just in case. They tend to be a little, uh, bitey.”
She clacked her teeth together a few times. “I suppose it isn’t cannibalism since they aren’t human, but I am only okay with it if they are eating Technis’ people.”
Bel nodded. “Yeah, I can agree with that.”
“Hey, Bel!”
She looked up to see Orseis, tentacles and spear waving frantically through the air. The young cuttle-girl stopped a good thirty strides away and continued waving for Bel to go to her.
“No,” Bel yelled back. “You come here! I’m tired!”
Orseis shook her head. “We found a bunch of humans.”
Cress’ hand tightened around her hammer and Bel began pushing herself to her feet when Orseis added, “they’re just fishing people.”
Bel relaxed, but she was halfway standing already so she finished pulling herself to her feet.
“I left some gorgons to keep the scrattes away, but you should talk to them before they panic,” Orseis explained.
“Fine, fine,” Bel muttered. “I don’t suppose anyone has any real clothes for me?”
Orseis shrugged and ripped a singed overcoat free from a nearby corpse. She shook it out and trotted it over to Bel. Bel wrinkled her nose at it, and turned it over in her hands. She guessed that its former owner was one of the desiccated victims of her plague minions, which meant that the cloth was mostly stain free. Bel put it on reluctantly.
“Oh,” Orseis added, “there are also a bunch of ships in the ocean. They’re probably, I don’t know, maybe half an hour away?”
Seeing the aggrieved expressions from Bel and Cress, Orseis held her tentacles up defensively.
“Whoah, half an hour is plenty of time to prepare.”
She put her tentacles on her hips.
“Look, at least I remembered to tell you, right? Praise me for that, at least!”