I AM THE GOD OF HELL FIRE....

[npc_mod]

Characters: OPEN TO ALL - PLEASE TAG IN WHEN YOU POST BY USING THE "EDIT TAGS" OPTION
Date/Time: 1:07PM to approximately 3:07pm October 24th
Location: The ENTIRE WORLD of Edensphere
Rating: Varied I expect, but let's say R to be safe.
Summary: Edensphere burns. Everyone dies. ...Well, not quite everyone. Warning for large-scale character death and

Comments

For Paladin and River

[feathered_earth]

Cara heard the fire start as she was on her way to get something to eat.

The Marketplace suddenly filled with the sounds of screaming people, and a very strange thup sound as some in the crowd suddenly seemed to be wearing very strange--armor. Many did not. Cara was among the latter--but this wasn't a time for her to panic

[lordofwater]

When the fires began, it was the tree that had gone up in bright burning flames first--River was watching when it happened. What he'd been used to seeing as the majestic trunk--also the elevator shaft--was a pillar of fire, and tongues of it rained from above, lighting on the stalls, the stores, even people...and incinerating them all. Screams, shouts of warning, the roaring of the fire buffeted his ears.

The bridge he had been standing beside went up almost immediately. River stared at it as it burned, feeling something like an intense prickling underneath his skin, a feeling that he could do something--that if only he could just reach out and shift something, some power in the air or perhaps within him, he could combat this fire, he could defeat it. But it wasn't coming. The feeling remained there, just beneath the surface.

He became aware of someone nearby and turned to see Cara rushing toward him. Others around them wore strange golden suits, but she, like him, was dressed only in ordinary clothes.

[mythgravenblade]

Lunch break.

Paladin had overslept that morning, and had to run out the door in order to make it to Medical in time--leaving him time neither for breakfast nor for bringing something with him for lunch. So when his lunch break came, he had jogged down to the marketplace, musing on the irony of his situation leaving him with less time than normal to eat while being hungrier than usual.

He didn't have the time to wonder about the sudden upswing in heat before everything burst into flames.

Everything except him, that is--he found himself staggering inside--inside what must have been some sort of suit of armor. It took him a while to orient himself--between the oppressive heat and chaotic view of what little he could see outside the armor, his world simply refused to make any sort of sense.

But he caught glimpses--there was the fruit stand, roasting and hissing, people flying by, faces distorted in the glass and in their fear, and there--

Two people he knew, two children. Granted, Cara was a guard, and he was sure that, when he was

[feathered_earth]

"River!" Cara shouted, catching sight of the boy, and then began coughing. It was a sudden flash of clarity--even if she was able to avoid the flames, there was no escaping the smoke, and without the armor suit, she would die. She yanked a handkerchief out of her pocket anyway to hold over her mouth and nose, making her way over to him. There had to be a way to get him out, somewhere that was safe.

Looking around wildly, she saw someone in the armor approaching them. "Hey you!" she said. "Can you see the bridge? Is it clear?" The heat pressed in all around her. It was hard to think, hard to breathe--she tried to focus. Get help, get River out. The thought that it was impossible to do so wouldn't get through to her.

[lordofwater]

"The bridge is burning," River said, his voice quiet but as tense as he felt, watching things and living creatures burning around them. The fire was intense in its eat, the very air becoming like an oven that might roast them all; the smoke burned his throat

[mythgravenblade]

Why was she asking that? The bridge burned; everything burned--he shook his head, hoping that the motion came through despite the armor. Cara had a handkerchief over her mouth now, good--his armored body could protect her from flame, maybe, but not from the smoke...oh, God, how were any of them going to survive this?

He didn't hear the cracking and snapping of the bough, but he did see River start towards it--and then he saw River become a river and what the boy said about just knowing what was good all made sense. Even in this wretched hell, he could feel the power flowing from him, feel a surge of hope--a dragon could take care of itself, this left him with only Cara to shield. Maybe...maybe...

[feathered_earth]

Cara's eyes went wide as River... transformed. It was as though his boyish frame had only been a mask, ripped off to show his true self. The dragon... Tatsu, she thought for one wrenching instant. Wherever he was she was suddenly glad it was not here. But that thought lasted less than a second. River knocked aside the plummeting branch, but Cara could see it wouldn't quite be enough, other things were falling too. The branch fell to the side, but the remains of a burning house now toppled from it. "Look out!" Cara shouted

[lordofwater]

Fear was gone. The desire to protect seemed to still flow through his very veins, but he wasn't afraid anymore. He felt strong, exhilirated, flying circles over the island, knocking away debris that fell toward it to protect the people beneath. He was burned and singed in places, but it didn't matter; they were small pains, meaning nothing in the greater scheme of things. They did not touch him, or change him

[mythgravenblade]

And just as suddenly, that maybe, maybe, became a resounding no, no, more like a death knell than anything he could have imagined.

He was on his back, winded--the moments before he'd only piece together later, for now, all he had known was something above him, burning; something racing for him, small; then he was down, and he recognized the person above him and blood, blood everywhere--

Inside, though he hated himself for it, anger bubbled up inside him--she was a fool, an utter fool, she had no armor--it should have been him, he could have survived, he was the one in armor, she was only a child--only the tiniest child, he could barely feel the weight of her body on his, what was she doing here--in the fire, in the marketplace, in this abyssal tree in the first place, it should have been him deadHis throat was closed, but the sound he wanted to make rang in the air nonetheless, rage and despair and fear and emotion so raw and animal that a human throat could never give issue to it

[mythgravenblade]

Nevertheless, Paladin's hands were on the cuts, the blood staining the golden armor, trying to staunch a wound that couldn't bleed any more. Under his hands he could feel that, feel the dreadful stillness of a body whose heart beat no more, but the manic voice told him it was only the gloves blocking the sensation of a pulse. So, though he knew it was wrong, he pressed down, pressure would stop the bleeding, pressed down on his wounds, pressure would knit flesh together, pressed his eyelids together, pressure would stop the tears. His world contracted until the pain from heat vanished, until the world outside vanished, leaving only a searing pain in his center that nothing could salve, that twisted and writhed like a dying snake until it blossomedHis eyes flew open and there was something now, a light that wasn't red and pained but pale, faint then expanding, pale green and white curling up from River's body, and before his eyes, he watched burned tissue melt away and a slash seal itself up, bells ringing in his head--but their chime