"SCREAMING FIREFLY DRAGON!"

Sylvanandra flinched back in surprise as a dragon made of sparkling light swopped down at them. It was beautiful and brilliant, formed from a thousand colors in a million shades, a huge fanged creature of the Chinese type, long and thin and slithering through the air. From Betty's perspective, the main advantage of this was that the descending claws of shadow pulled away from her face.

"Another summoner!?" Sylvanandra hissed, leaping away, her eyes tracking to the forest where Goldie stood, sparks of light emitting from her hands. Next to her was Midnight, fire flickering from his neck and paws, his stripes black and glowing red. Unfortunately, unlike his water form, he was still ordinary housecat sized. Midnight snarled and ran at Sylvanandra while Goldie brought the sparkling dragon down for another swing. Betty sat up.

"That was extremely frightening," she said, in a complete monotone. "I assume Goldie has not miraculously bonded with a dragon familiar while we were fighting."

"No. That's an incredible bluff she's constructed out of her lights." Quakfina confirmed. "Which are still her only spell. It's actually extremely impressive, considering how recently she accessed her magical power. I think she might have exceptional control, which can be useful for someone with low magical capacity. It can make them a dangerous fighter. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen today during this fight."

"We are the only ones capable of harming her," Betty said. "But our abilities are bad matches for hers. It would be better if I could master fire."

"I still think that's unlikely."

"Perhaps I can manage it under stress."

"Betty you almost died a second ago and your reaction was to say "that's extremely frightening" as if a tv show you liked wasn't available. You are a wonderful caring person, but you aren't an emotional one. I believe fire will be the last element you master. Fire, as I've said, is the element of intense feeling. Rage. Passion."

"Lust?" Betty said, sitting up.

"Yes I suppose that's implied with passion. Why? Your voice sounded strange just there..."

"A fake!" Sylvanandra screamed. "YOU TRIED TO BLUFF ME WITH AN OVERSIZED FIREWORK!?"

"You're just mad it worked!" Goldie shouted back. "But uh, yeah that's my only trick. Betty I could use some help here!"

Betty was sitting on the ground with her legs crossed, hands in her lap, eyes closed. Quakfina regained her duck form and shouted.

"Betty is working on something!" The duck called out to Goldie. "Concentrate your lights! They're a good match against her shadow magic!"

Goldie groaned, but she gathered all her lights together into a tight ball, swinging them like a club. Between that and the darting attacks of the flaming Midnight, they were keeping Sylvanandra busy...for now.

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

"They cannot keep this up, Betty. I hope you have a good plan. What are you doing?"

"I am contemplating the nature of my emotions."

Because there had always been one emotion Betty had felt strongly. In an odd, sideways kind of way. And not in a way that others would immediately notice. But the truth was it was on her mind all the time. Her thoughts dwelled on Tyler, but he wasn't the catalyst. Not the cause. It had been a part of her long before she'd ever met Tyler.

"Evan isn't the only degenerate pervert in our group!"

"You said that so proudly."

It had only ever been theoretical, of course. She'd never had someone to experiment with. It had been snippets of things she'd found online, it had been people she'd seen and found attractive, it had been books she'd read and things she'd watched, all fueling wild fantasies. But that was just it. They were WILD fantasies. Wild and free and emotional. Intense emotion was difficult for her. Even this had burned deep beneath the surface. But it had BURNED.

She supposed she should think of Trevor, because they had an arrangement. And he certainly played a part in her thoughts, but he wasn't alone. Now wasn't the time to hold back. Her memory and imagination provided a thousand possibilities, and then thousands more. Men and women in leather and lace and rubber or even nothing at all. Within her mind her body became the focus of a million billion hands and mouths and lips and teeth and fingers as she let lust overcome her.

It burned.

She felt her nodes respond (in more ways than one, she thought, in solidarity with Evan) and the fire flared within her. When her eyes opened, she saw the fight had changed. Midnight had turned into a lion with tiger stripes, glowing red fire streaked with black, a mane of flames around his head. NOW he was doing some real damage, Sylvanandra on the back foot as the flaming lion beat her back with burning claws.

"UGH!!" Quakfina retched, gagging and clutching her stomach. "Oh, sweet gods, no, how, how could one human mind even HOLD all that!?"

"You can read my private thoughts?" Betty asked.

"Private!? Betty you were screaming. Screaming obscenities. That was the filthiest, most depraved...I don't even...I don't think human bodies can even actually do that one with the lawn flamingos...."

"Actually with enough lubrication at the correct temperature, I estimate Trevor would be capable of it provided we--"

"Stop immediately!" Quakfina said. "Stop. I do not want to hear the details of your planned trysts."

"I had forgotten you were an angel." Betty said. "I suppose to a heavenly being this would be quite alarming. But these are ordinary mortal thoughts."

"I am an angel to a goddess who has a been around more than a few times! I promise you your lust is exceptional."

"Indeed it is!" A new voice said. It was a high pitched squeak, but also somehow...sultry. Quakfina and Betty looked up to see a woman. Well, mostly a woman. No, definitely a women. Extremely a woman. Those curves were impossible. Those proportions were impossible. She was a deranged sexual fantasy made flesh. More deranged than the fantasies Betty had just been having.

She was less than two feet tall. She had white hair, not the pale white of old age but a glistening silver that spoke of health and youth. Two thin horns curved up from her forehead. Her skin was red, her luscious lips a deep purple. She wore two purple strips of fabric, one across her chest and one as a short skirt around her waist. She stayed in the air by flapping a pair of black bat wings.

"And now look what you've summoned," Quakfina glared. "An imp."

"An imp from the domain of lust!" The imp said in her high pitched yet sexy voice. Betty wasn't sure how she was doing that. "Making me a spirit of fire and lust. A very powerful spirit of fire and lust, attracted here by your sinfully sweet fantasies. And that rack. Damn. I mean damn. I literally spoke to the succubus queen a couple of days ago and she'd be jealous. So how about you accept me as your familiar for the element of fire, I show you a few tricks only a forked tongue can pull off, then we..."

"I do not have time for that," Betty said.

"Yeah yeah big fight, so just a quick little thing to seal the deal and we're good to go!"

"No. I do not have time to weigh the implications. I am currently in a fight."

"Good girl!" Quakfina said. "You can't trust hellspawn!"

With a pained yowl Midnight crashed into the dirt beside them. Goldie hurried over to their side as a shadow loomed over them. Sylvanandra rose high into the treetops in a web of vines and shadow, snapping flytrap mouths writhing around her like snakes.

"I'm sorry am I bothering you? Because y'know, I'm like a really big deal. A super powerful sorceress who's here to kill you and I kind of feel like I'm being ignored! Did you really think one unusually warm cat was enough to beat me!?"

"I am sorry," Betty said. "But there has kind of been a lot going on. I guess you got lost in the background."

"I'll kill you!" Sylvanandra shrieked, the plant heads descending.

"Tell you what!" The imp said. "Call this a free sample!"

She took a deep breath and fire crackled around her tony frame. Them it flew out, all at once, a white hot beam of energy that turned everything in it's path to dust. Sylvanandra's duplicate screamed and vanished in smoking ash.

It smelled kind of like muffins.