Knocking Down

It happened so fast for Stamatia that she froze for a moment with her eyelids growing wide. She didn’t know what occurred or how it was even possible. Her mind kept replaying the same two seconds repeatedly trying to understand. Nothing succeeded.

Finally, the pain of her shoulder wounds and blood dripping heavily down her body woke her up. Stamatia realized how close Fumiko stood and pulled away. She jumped back a few steps to what she thought would be a safe distance. Instinctively, her hand pressed against her bloodied shoulder trying to fight the stinging pain rising to the surface. Her eyes glanced at her armor. ‘She did so much damage to my armor at this range! It’s the strongest flame I have! How…how…why?!’

Appearing a little disconnected to the reality of the situation, it painted Fumiko’s eyes a dull empty green. She lifted her flame arm up, eager to finish matters. “I should thank you, again. I’ve been able to learn quite a bit about what I’m capable of because of this fight. And I know now that you don’t have a chance of winning anymore.”

The declaration wiped away all of the shock that Stamatia held. Her eyes narrowed immediately in response. “You’ve become rather arrogant now that you think you’ve got the upper hand.” She pulled her hand away and re-ignited her armor to cover the gap. Stamatia summoned flames into her hands letting them engulf them fully to blaze into the air with trails that reached above her.

A short sigh came from Fumiko’s lips. She hoped the fight would have ended. The last counter should have been more than enough to establish her position. Fumiko didn’t understand why she insisted. ‘Fine, have it your way…’ She began walking forward slowly, but vanished from Stamatia’s sight a second later.

Flames exploded suddenly behind Stamatia and she quickly turned prepared to attack. She turned her defenses back to automatic to make up for Fumiko’s strange speed. “I told you, you’re arrogant! You can’t win! Not against me! My answer is correct!” Amongst her words, nothing appeared to her. She twisted her forehead a little in confusion only to have an answer a split-second later.

Flames blew in from behind Stamatia knocking her to the ground destroying the upper half of her armor. Only the fact that she laid on the ground kept her bare top from exposure. Fumiko stood over her with a hand still extended, flickers of fire floating away into the air. “I didn’t speak in arrogance, but confidence. I understood our differences better than you. This is no longer your fight.”

Dirt tasted disgusting. However, surprised a second time by the same move was worse. Stamatia gritted her teeth through the burning. While her armor absorbed most of the damage, some of Fumiko’s flame reached her. It gave her redness over nearly all of her back.

It hurt.

Her mind ran through questions and fears. Everything replayed for her. She lost.

Stamatia dragged herself up from the earth. She didn’t feel so beat up since her academy days. However, the level of pain she felt was nothing. Resting on her stubbornness, her body began to ignore the pain. It gave her the strength to stand back up. “I won’t lose! I can’t lose!” Desperation fueled her words rather than resolve.

Fumiko picked up on the changes in Stamatia. She felt for a while that something laid underneath her in the way she fought. It didn’t feel right to be addressing matters in the middle of a fight. Therefore, she didn’t act on it, but their fight ended a while ago. A fact that Fumiko wished Stamatia understood. “I don’t know the reason for why you wish to keep fighting a battle that you’ve already lost, but I doubt that dying will help it.”

She gritted her teeth again. Fumiko dismissed her reason. Fire burned up around Stamatia in response to her emotions. Rage boiled up inside charging the flame to grow hotter. It completely engulfed her body leaving only a slight glow from her eyes. Her appearance made her look as though she became fire rather than simply wearing it. “I won’t die! Nothing will stop me from ensuring the correct path is taken! For that I’ll stop you and your damned rebellion!”

The air burned around Fumiko marking the changing atmosphere. It drained some of the oxygen from the space making it difficult for her to breath. “You won’t stop…” Winds spun around the field rapidly changing to the intensity of the fire. Fumiko drew upon her blue flame arm for a final attack. She saw the woman putting everything into it and holding nothing back. “…fine…I wanted both of us to walk away…”

“You’re naïve to believe this can be settled by words!”

“Perhaps.”

“Naivety is a weakness!” The Field blasted up around Stamatia forcefully throwing chunks of earth to all sides. Flames roared in the full Field released to lash out at all things. “I’ll show what it looks like to devote one fully to your answer! I will crush that weakness of yours and your rebellion!”

Flames surrounded and licked Fumiko, but she remained calm. It surprised her a little, noting how at ease she was in the situation. ‘A day ago this would have scared me… A day ago, I feared my flame… Now…’ She looked down at her arm. Dense magic ribbons spun around it fiercely. It glowed brightly, building magic together quickly. ‘It’s a little weird being this comfortable, but I know what I must do.’

A large blue flame burst from her palm and expanded quickly to fill her hand. Filled with the volume of magic, the small size couldn’t contain it. It spilled out to surround her hand. Long tendrils whipped around almost encompassing her arm. Winds blew up around her and clashed with Stamatia. The currents fought between them before the women even made a move.

Fumiko stretched out her arm to her side. The movement extinguished the neighboring flames of Stamatia, preventing them from approaching. Even inside the caldron, none of them could reach Fumiko. Her eyes stared down with Stamatia almost acting like a measure of readiness. “Still hung up on the rebellion part…rebellion or not, I have someone to save. You cannot stop me!”

Stamatia raised her hand above her. Fire from all around her Field flowed towards it channeling into a compressed orb. It sucked away all of the flames until nothing remained but the mass above her. She pulled her hand down, almost struggling with the amount that she restrained from her field. It ripped at the seams in rage wanting a release. A headache sprung up the back of her head spreading to the sides. It pounded her skull in. She didn’t care about any of it. Any punishment her body wished upon her, she took.

The massive blaze in front of Stamatia threatened to come apart. However, it didn’t need to remain together for long. She directed and focused every bit of it. Cracking like thunder, the flames charged free with a sigh of relief that shot out a shockwave.

In the moment before Fumiko released her fire, all of the tightly spun threads and ribbons of magic exploded outward. They expanded quickly to eclipse her body. A magic circle carved through the air and passed through her body. Blue flames roared free from her arm and completely engulfed her, matching the amassed energy Stamatia gathered.

Red and blue clashed in the middle turning everything to purple light. The collision ate through the earth, digging out an even greater crater than the last and eventually swallowing it whole. Their light filled nearly the entire camp. It pulled gazes from everywhere. Winds fled from the epicenter riding new shockwaves and breaking down tents.

Flames clawed and tore at each other digging into the core. They expanded outward feeding off their masters. Purple tinted flames approached them. Neither of them faltered with the incoming inferno. Both stood their ground even after it surrounded them as if it became a life of its own. Fumiko and Stamatia disappeared from anyone’s sight.

Fires raged on.

Chapter 147 – Knocking Down

“Damn…” remarked Seiji, lowering his arms a little. Smoke rose from his forearms, but quickly faded away. The light from Fumiko’s battle made it outside the camp to him. He suddenly felt his tunic kick up in the wind. Seiji grinned a little, imagining the awesome fight. “Looks like she’s really getting crazy over there… To feel it all the way out here... Must say I’m impress—” A fist cut him off and knocked him over to the ground, spinning a little before landing in a cloud of dirt.

Quickly, he stood up and rubbed his slightly red face. “The hell’s the matter with you?! I was talking!”

The tall woman kept a flat expression and held her metal clad fists up, always ready. “This is a fight. There are no breaks.”

“I already told you that I’m not fighting you! So just run off somewhere else.” He waved his hand at her, dismissing her from the battlefield. “If you want, find me a guy and I’ll fight them instead.”

It annoyed her that he refused to take her seriously. She pulled back her arm for another strike. “I don’t need your chauvinistic chivalry.” Not waiting for any sort of reply, she unleashed her fist at him. However, a shocked expression came across her face. Seiji’s hand stopped her punch with nothing more than his palm. She looked across her arm at him puzzled and found his features turned oddly serious. “Finally ready to—“

“Get down!” Seiji slid around behind her and pushed her to the ground. She protested him, but his strength beat her.

Making use of her elbows, she tried to knock him off her. “What do you think you’re doing?!” A percussive blast rang through her ears. Popping from changing pressures made her nearly deaf. Then the impact came, tossing up the loose layer of dirt forced to ride the wave out.

Seiji stood up, releasing the woman from his hold. The shockwave passed. He walked away looking back at the camp. Moments before, he noticed that the fire reached a climax. It started a chain reaction explosion that would be stronger than the weak power coming from them before. His instinct told him he needed to do something. “Damn…they’re getting reckless… Who knows how many that actually hurt…”

The woman didn’t know immediately what happened. It all occurred so fast for her that she played catch up. Her eyes scanned the surface around her and the horizon ahead, for as far as she could in the night. She slowly rose back to her feet and turned around. The sight of Seiji’s back caught her a bit by surprise. A small chunk of wood lodged itself in the small of his back with blood soaking into the fabric of his tunic. “Why did you do that?”

“Eh?” croaked Seiji, with a slight tilt to his head. He didn’t quite turn to face her, just enough to meet gazes.

She narrowed her eyes in annoyance. “You protected me. And injured yourself for me, your enemy.”

A sigh dropped from his mouth. She forced him to turn around, having to keep explaining himself. “Because I wanted to.”

“That’s not a reason,” she snapped back, the tone in her voice starting to change. She always tried to keep herself in check and calm. It was her only guard to stop the others from thinking less of her.

Seiji gave her a shrug, not having any more of a better answer for her. “I wasn’t thinking about it. You’ll just have to accept it.”

“But I’m your enemy. You don’t protect your enemy.”

“Enough of that!” snapped Seiji. He leaned a little with his words. It took her a little off guard. “Stop with the enemy this and that. You aren’t my enemy!”

She tightened her fists. “Because I’m a girl, right?”

Slightly bewildered, Seiji looked over at her. He shook his head at her. “What? No, that’s got nothing to do with it. If you were a guy you still wouldn’t be my enemy.”

“But I want to stop you from your objective. How can I not be your enemy?”

Seiji waved his hand to dismiss her shitty reason. He walked up to her and pointed a finger at her to make his point. “You’re just a soldier. You’re following orders. I’ve got no problem with you.”

The Atlantean backed off a little perplexed by the answer she got. She didn’t expect him to actually think in such a way. It was oddly rational even though he didn’t seem to appear to be one that thought with his head. The picture she got of him only made things more confusing. “Then who is your enemy?”

“The one that’s giving the orders to kill my best friend.”

“Huh? Who's that?”

“What my friend?” He looked over at her for an answer. She simply shook her head at him. “Oh, the one wanting my friend dead?” Seiji shrugged at her again. “No idea!”

She felt like she wanted to fall over that he seemed to answer honestly without concern for how stupid it sounded. It did at least make her sweat a little. He only became more confusing with each word. “How can you be here with no idea who your enemy is? You don’t even know that they’re here.”

The thought hadn’t really fully crossed his mind. He rubbed his head, scratching his hair a little. “I guess that’s possible, but we’re pretty certain that they’re here somewhere.”

“Why?”

“Because every assassin wore the same military uniform that you do. They were all Atlanteans with the same powers as you special types.”

Seiji’s words made her step back a little. She didn’t expect such an answer. Even though it didn’t make any sense to her, she saw in his eyes that he believed what he said. It muddled their situation further. She didn’t know what was happening any longer. “How can that be? No one leaves the barrier. We remain here protecting our privacy. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason we would want to attack anyone on the outside.”

“I’m not too understanding of the whole situation, but my friend is the son of your late King. As it was explained to me, certain people don’t want him to inherit the throne. That is the reason for the attack.”

“That can’t be…” The lies became worse. She knew it was impossible, no matter how much he spoke them as truths. Taking a firm step forward, she leaned toward Seiji. “The King has no son. It is public knowledge that the Queen died before giving him an heir. So you’re lying. Whoever has been telling you this has been lying to you.”