Cleo screamed as she let the flames out. Thick roiling banks of smoke, heat and ash swarmed down the stairs and hit the approaching Lupe men, knocking them off their feet and sending them tumbling back down the stairs. She looked back up the stairs and saw that her friends were beginning to escape, so quickly she decided to follow suit.
There was something very off about the entire situation but she did not have time to dwell on it. The best way she could help her friends, and help Law was to get clear of the stairs and deal as much damage to the chasing Lupe hunters as possible. It was infuriating, but her hands were tied.
“Where's Law? Louisa asked as they reached the top of the stairs. “I've not seen him in a while”.
“He's still down there. I assume he's the reason why there are only six people chasing us right now”.
“Are you sure, Cleo?” Jim replied. “That's awfully optimistic of you”.
“I have to think like that. If I thought any other way I would run down those stairs right now and there would be nothing any of you could do about it”. She sighed and sat down, conjuring a wall of pure fire to inhibit anyone from getting through the exit while they sat and caught their breath. “Believe me, I am terrified something might happen to Law, but he promised he would be fine”.
“Come here,” Winoa said, before hugging Cleo and letting her relax slightly on her shoulder. “It'll be okay”.
“It better...” Cleo murmured as she looked at the wall. Now they were on the other side of the wall it looked a lot less majestic, but far sturdier. For whatever reason it had been built into a hillside and blocked off all view from the outside world into the garden itself. Whoever the owner of the garden was, they did not want people to see the place in any way other than the way they intended. To Cleo it seemed like the ultimate expression of wealth, and a much needed distraction from her worry over Law.
As she watched the soldiers force themselves through the fire she restored as much of her mana reservoir as possible before grouping up with her friends and preparing for when the Lupe finally managed to break through Cleo’s barrier.
Balls of condensed mana shot out of the wall of fire, breaking it enough for the Lupe soldiers on the other side of the barrier to break out of their confinement and leap into the view of Cleo and her companions. As they burst through the fire Winoa was ready. She summoned a wind funnel that descended upon the Lupe soldiers, and as the wind descended the flames behind the Lupe propagated, turning the tunnel of wind into a gigantic tunnel of fire. To add more damage into the mix, Cleo began creating rocks out of mana and Louisa began throwing the rocks into the flaming hurricane like cannonballs.
There was a series of screams within the burning mass of dense, spinning debris before the world descended into the quiet crackle of burning meat. Slowly Winoa and Cleo severed their connections to the flaming tornado and the entire monstrosity slowly returned into the pure essence it was made from. The wind stopped and the bodies fell out of the sky, landing in a pile in front of the stairway. Seeing the bodies so charred, both Cleo and Winoa gagged and retched at the damage they had caused.
“I hate doing that...” Cleo said as she sat with her arms wrapped around her legs. She felt surprisingly still even though the scent of the charred corpses were making her feel like vomiting. “I love fire, it’s beautiful, it keeps you warm, it purifies and lights the world but... When you kill with it... I don’t know. It’s terrifying”.
Winoa sat besite Cleo and put her head on her friend’s shoulder. “You should know that Cleo. It’s part and parcel of the essence of fire. It’s both life and death, creation and destruction. We can’t just accept one, we have to fully accept both or we will never progress”.
“You think I don’t know this?” Cleo snapped, “I know I have to understand all of the attributes of the elemental concepts, but I don’t have to like them”.
“It’s okay Cleo,” Louisa said, hugging her friends. “Climbing the tower is ruthless at the best of times, and horrible at the worst. We all just have to survive okay?”
“Okay,” both Cleo and Winoa replied in unison.
The sat like that, quietly watching the smouldering corpses, for almost ten minutes before Yun walked out of the stairwell, holding a single arm. There was a look on his face that Cleo had never seen on the quiet man before, but she knew that it terrified her. She looked behind him to see if the laughing, clownish form of Law was coming up the stairs, but as Yun got closer she began to develop a sinking sensation in her stomach.
“No...” she whispered as she looked at the arm in Yun’s hands. “No... nononono...” She could feel herself beginning to shake. “You promised, Law. You promised!”
“What’s wrong?” Louisa said, looking up and seeing Yun. “Yun! Is everything...” she trailed off. Louisa knew Yun better than anyone else there, and her reaction only affirmed Cleo’s feeling. Something had happened to her Law. Something had happened and she knew that she was going to hurt whoever had done it.
“What happened, Yun,” Cleo whispered. She could feel her emotions burning within her. Her sadness, and her rage. He had left her. He broke his promise. They forced him to.
“It was him versus fourteen men. He killed one, but then the others started actually fighting and he was soon overwhelmed. I don’t know what happened after that because I had to deal with the Lupe Heaven ranker, I just know that when I came back to the point where he fell I could only find his blood and his arm”.
“So he could be alive?” Winoa said, her voice wavering slightly.
“I...” Yun stopped. “No. It’s not likely. I can’t hear him. I could hear him even when he slept, but now... It’s like he’s not on this plane anymore”.
Hearing Yun’s confirmation slammed everything into sharp focus for Cleo. She felt that deep sensation at the pit of her stomach bubble up her throat. It rolled up her throat and exited her mouth in a great, deep wail. Her nails dug into the dirt and her tears splashed against her knees.
She cried and cried, and as her tears fell, clouds began building and rain began drizzling down upon the group. The misty rain was fast and unrelenting, and soon enough the entire group were soaked through by the water, but no one felt like moving.
Huh, this will cause them to grow into better climbers. Good job at breaking the mold.
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