Fic - Burning the Phoenix - Chapter Three - Hot Potato

[elfowlgirl]

Onto chapter three!

Chapter Three: Hot Potato

I must remember why I am here.  Why I must leave…

Magic.  The Stoneborn.  The Sundering of the Veil.  In this day and age, knowledge of these things have become so ubiquitous, they are practically taught to schoolchildren.

Sometime toward the end of World War II the barrier that separated the physical world from the metaphysical world was irreparably destroyed.  What had once only been possible in fairy tales and occult rituals was now, suddenly, available to the layman… and contrary to popular belief, chaos didn’t ensue.  The full entry of magic into the mortal world was all in all a rather quiet affair, and by the time the everyday person noticed, governments all over the world had a tight lockdown on the changes brought on by the Sundering of the Veil.

Magic was treated like a science, a science like any other, once the world at large became aware of it, and what was deemed ‘safe’ was openly practiced by the public.  In time, increasingly obscure themes like sacred tribal powers and alchemical golems gradually trickled into the open, joining a burgeoning norm of accepted metaphysics.

The Stoneborn were among these revealed obscurities; ancient advanced golems that housed the essences of living creatures, allowing them to change shape according to the creatures used in their creation.  Before the Sundering, the creation of a Stoneborn was a brutal process, with the newer Stoneborn having human life-essence involved in procedure.  In this age, the process for creating Stoneborn isn’t quite as brutal and is more akin to crafting a cyborg.

Even with obscurities like the Stoneborn being revealed to the layman, the growing ubiquitous quality of magic in this age did little to change the course of history.  Man still went to the moon and never returned.  The Cold War still ended the way it did.  The Towers still fell and the world became a darker place because of it.  There is still an Internet and a flourishing information age.

… constants and variables.  No matter how much things change, it’s surprising how much things still stay the same.  I’ve been here so long, that I’ve almost forgotten where I came from.

The time for watching from a distance is long past.  It amazes me how quickly these people have adapted to the presence of power… and it terrifies me what they might be capable of once they have had time to master our gift to this world.

Perhaps our gift isn’t a gift, after all.

~||~

Pause soared over the city, his wings beating furiously to keep him afloat.  He could hear distant explosions beneath him.  Whatever the pigmen had done was backfiring monstrously, a few still shambling about as far as the outermost border of the city, at some point having left their brethren behind.

He was flying counterclockwise, starting at the fringes of town and slowly tightening his circular route inwards.  To his relief, he saw no-one on the streets below.  As he circled further into the city, the destruction that the pigbeasts had caused became increasingly pronounced--small fires, the ruins of lightposts and bus stops, splintered earth.  … and dead bodies.

Pause winced, his smooth aerial path wobbling ever so slightly in beat with the empathic surge.

The little fires, he noted, were growing ever larger as he traveled.  The undead grew ever more packed, and they weren’t staying in one place either.  They were moving.  The pack flowed like a river across a bed of stones, if the stones in this case were referring to the buildings, toppled and standing alike.

It wasn’t entirely unlike watching a swarm of man-sized, porcupine locusts.

From his elevation, Pause inferred that at some point during his flight the crowd of pigthings had apparently evacuated the Eastern Annex, the whole mob of them shambling toward the south instead.  Pause’s memory clicked--maybe that spontaneous insect analogue wasn’t completely off the mark.  The way the monsters were moving was very much like a swarm of insects, kind of like fire-ants… looking for their queen.

The Native gritted his teeth as he considered his options as he watched the semi-autonomous porcine mass below.  Should he fly back and tell the guys what he’d found thus far?  … or should he keep following the flow and confirm his suspicions?

Pause, not being a man of good judgement on his own, invariably chose the latter.

As stealthily as he could manage, he landed in a large garbage dumpster to hide and shed his wings in favor for the speed, stealth, and reflexes of a cat.  The feline that lent him those abilities stayed close as the Native used his new claws to scale the buildings and skulk across ledges, tailing the swarm flooding the streets toward its destination, grateful that he had yet to be spotted.

The ability to call upon the skills of the creatures of the land was something Pause knew was a treasured skill that his tribe had protected for ages … long before the Sundering of the Veil more than 85 years ago, back during the closing volleys of World War II.  When it came time to pass on the ancient skills, it was Pause that the elders chose … and he was a natural.

It did diminish the coolness factor of his talent that he had to call upon the small creatures like a Disney Princess.  Snow White, maybe.  Sometimes he wished there was a slightly more badass way to use the abilities he commanded now.

There was little time to dwell upon origin stories and overall badassery now, though--Pause mentally punched himself in the face to focus back on his task.  Something freaky was going on here, and he had committed to himself to finding the source of it all.

Ah, the life of a career scout.  If he wasn’t being a messenger (of bad news, nonetheless), he would be found poking his nose into other people’s beeswax.  … and that’s how he liked it.

In a pulse of awareness, he caught sight of the horde’s target--a large warehouse, formerly abandoned, was surrounded by small groups of swine-men that surged both erratically and consciously around its perimeter.  Surprisingly, it seemed like very few of the pigmen were actually entering the building, the mass outside left to act like a deterrent or, if it came to it, as guards.

Whoever had decided to use the warehouse as a base, however, was evidently not as clever as they’d liked to think.  Pause could see no pigmen in the upper levels of the building, and it only took a well-placed jump to land him, clinging, to the edge of a second story window.  A gentle push against the pane sent the glass clattering quietly to the dust-covered floor.

Something flashed briefly in the darkness.  A pink blur--too small to be a full-sized pigman, whatever it was--scurried off at the noise of the tinkling glass.  He waited for a moment, leaning back out the window so as not to be seen, then darted inside when he was sure that nothing else was emerging from the shadows.

The kind cat that had lent him his grip seemed to have gifted Pause with night-vision, too--as he crept along the blackened floor, shapes slowly took form around him until the entire section was visible in three-dimensional black and gray.

And there, in the back of the room, was a platoon of pigmen, staring right at him.

Oh, fsk!

The native dove behind a crate, wincing as it elicited a small *thump* against the concrete.  He took a few seconds to calm down, his fast breathing eventually slowing to its normal rate as he peeked out from behind his shelter to snatch a look at the pigmen again.

They hadn’t moved, which he supposed was good.  Either they were on command not to engage unless engaged first, or they had as terrible eyesight in this lighting as humans did.  He leapt quickly to hide behind another crate, then another and another, until he was mere feet from the monsters.  They still hadn’t budged … although that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as they were blocking the stairs.

Time to employ my expert tactics, Pause silently decided.  He grabbed the edge of the crate, pulling gently against the wooden plank until it finally detached from the rest of the container. Moving into more of a hunched stand than a crouch, he flung the board across the room, where it clanked angrily against more of its brethren.

The pigs flew together at the crate, demolishing it and its neighbors in seconds while screeching as if the inert objects had offended the pigs’ collective mothers in some unintelligible language of bonk-goes-the-wood.  Pause smiled to himself as he ducked past the door and onto the staircase mere moments before the automaton-like zombies returned to their posts.

He looked up along the stairwell, and then down.  If his judgement was right (and it usually was--usually), the building was five floors tall … but six floors total. Four floors to go, and if they were as “well guarded” as this floor was, it wasn’t likely to be too much of a problem to get to the top.

… it wasn’t even close to that much of a problem considering that there apparently hadn’t been anyone smart enough to think to guard the stairwells themselves.  Though each step creaked with age beneath his feet, the climb up the metal stairs was wholly uneventful. He reached the uppermost floor with little to no effort.

Someone was clearly on this floor.  He could just about make out mumbled words spoken by a dimmed voice.  The window showing into the floor itself had been cleverly covered by … something.

He bent down and put one ear to the (cold, metal) door.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a confrontation--on his own terms, a fight would be fine.  But in an abandoned warehouse, surrounded by angry pigmen at this anonymous enemy’s disposal?  No thanks.

His own terms, after all.

Even with his enhanced feline-granted hearing and his ear pressed flush against the barrier, the sound coming through the door remained distorted.

“--last mission----casualties.”
“--more resistance----quite as fun---fighting back----too good to be true--”

“--worrying too----can go without----sooner we----executed.”

“--very eager----aren’t you?”

“--much at stake----nevermind----next target----affinity for----cooking up.”
“--overkill?”

“--lucky if we can----keep to the plan----unturned.”

“Literally.”

The conversation beyond the door was suddenly interrupted by higher-pitched snorting and squealing, accompanied by the sound of a child chattering and trying to get the attentions of the two people talking.  The voices of the two people talking earlier quickly took on a more alarmed and concerned tone.

“... What?  Intruder?”

“--heat signature. There’s an eavesdropper here.”
“Dammit!”

“Get out of here.  I’ll handle things.”

“Of course.  I’ll catch you later.”

A loud explosion boomed on the other side of the door, forcing Pause to wince away to preserve his elevated hearing.  … which was just as well, because a split second later the metal door slammed open right where his head had been half a heartbeat earlier.

He didn’t even take the risk of seeing who it was that blew the door open--the second the door flung open on shrieking hinges, he darted inside.

It was then that he learned what the explosion was.

The blast had taken out the entire wall of the warehouse, which would’ve been great to help him make an escape.  On the downside, the mass of pigmen swarming around the compromised building was now far too great in number to leave any safe spot to land and have a hope of surviving.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.  Pause was screwed.

“I knew I smelled a rat … technically a cat, but who’s keeping track?”

Pause froze in his tracks, unconsciously unsheathing the claws on his hands in preparation for whatever it was standing behind him.

“Well I smell a rat,” the native retorted with a smirk.  “And we both know who’s clearly got the better sense of smell.”

“Alright then … did you know that some places serve roast cat as a delicacy?”

Pause’s eyes widened and he ducked to the side just quick enough to avoid the fireball that had been aimed at his head.

“Holy sh--”  Another fireball interrupted Pause’s next invective, forcing Pause to scamper behind a row of boxes for cover.  Oh bad.  This is bad, the Native repeated in his mind over and over. Badbadbadbadbad--

“Here, kitty kitty kitty.  C’mere kitty.”  There was no lack of mocking snark in the tormentor’s tone of voice.

Pause couldn’t stop himself.  “NO!”

The tone of the tormentor’s voice took on a very sadistic glee.  “There you are.”

“Shit!”

Pause clambered and lunged away as quickly as he was able just as the box he was hiding behind exploded into hickory smoked bits.  He leaped into the rafters in a futile attempt to find shelter and chanced a short glance at the fireball-flinging psycho while he fumbled to press the activator for the distress beacon hidden on his belt.

She didn’t look like all that much at first glance: your typical dark mage in dark robes brandishing a fireball in each hand.  What did set her apart was the long, flowing shock of blazing red hair on her head, free from covering hoods and hats.  The rest of her features were hidden behind the lavender lenses of her glasses and a formfitting white balaclava wrapped around her neck and the lower face.

“Hey.  My eyes are up here.”

Pause had to literally cling to the ceiling to avoid getting pelted by another enraged barrage of fireballs.

“I wasn’t looking there, I swear!”

“I know.  I just wanted to say that.  Now hold still and burn like a good little kid.”

“… MOMMY!!”  The native let go of the ceiling and backflipped through the air to evade yet another volley of searing projectiles, landing lithely on all fours much like the proverbial cat.

One could feel the pyromaniac magus roll her eyes behind her glasses.  “Lovely.  A momma’s boy.”  She muttered something else under her breath … and then she fired off a massive wall of flame.

“Fsk you--GAH!”  Pause’s retort was cut short as the literal firewall hit him and slammed his body into the back wall, shocking him out of his mystically enhanced feline power mode.  Slightly singed and now bereft of his gifts, Pause slid down to the floor dazed and nigh-helpless.

Even while the Native struggled to get to his feet, the fire mage sauntered up to him with equal parts disdain and condescension, her right hand resting on her hip as she juggled another fireball cavalierly in her left.  It was her right hand that got Pause’s attention: it was wrapped in some sort of copper-colored metal and embellished up and down with little sapphire-blue lights that pulsed ominously against the dark.

“Pity, pity, kitty, kitty.  I was actually having fun for once.  It’s like Flappy Bird with fireballs.”  The mage almost sounded disappointed.  “You were dodging like a champ.  A shame you weren’t really giving me a decent fight.”

Pause just grinned cheesily in response.  “Meow.”

He was met with a full metal punch to the face.  “Shut it.  I’m the only one allowed to be snarky here.”

Now literally seeing stars, the Native was far too gone from that sucker punch to retort … which might very well have saved his life, as he barely registered a barked order from the mage standing over him and the rough grip of two half-rotting corpse pigthings dragging him out of the room and into uncertainty.

Comments

[justicetom]

Wow. This is amazing. And I could put down SO many quotes I loved. Here is my favourite, though:
"It’s like Flappy Bird with fireballs." Just... GG.

[bookworm2692]

This is amazing. Can't stress it enough.

Ok, my parents just came up, so I went to bed. Morning now, so I can finish my comment.

I really liked how you explained magic and the Stoneborn at the start. Not only did it help clear things up, it was all mysterious and creepy. Another plot point?

[halcyonlioness]

:3

[bookworm2692]

:D