27 The Eternal Flame
Fwoosh!
Across the dark sky, a burning man flew. His body in flames, naked chared, sizzling, moving, flying across the thunderous air. A flicker in the darkness.
He flew over the city, over the tall buildings, over the skyscrapers. He reached the hospital. His body like a black void in an inferno of fire. He hovered high in the sky, looking down on the street corner, the ambulances parked one after the other. People being stretched in, bleeding, in pain. He watched as nurses ran back and forth, carrying patient after patient. He slowly lowered the intensity of his flaming rocket feet and floated to the ground below.
Tap...
He reached the asphalt street where all the nurses turned to his bright orange body.
Snap!
He extinguished his flames. The ash floating into the sky.
A nurse ran up to him.
"Are you ok! Your body! Oh my god! How are you standing!"
She quickly turned around, calling for more nurses to come and carry Mr. Chain inside. But he just stood still, his charred body in the dark open street. The cold nightly breeze blowing against his flaky crumbling skin.
The nurse ran up and tried to grab him by the arm, but he quickly moved out the way and grabbed her by the head.
Snatch!
"I'm gonna need your life."
X Spell: [Sacrifice]
The nurse slowly turned into a husk, her skin and bones turning to dust.
Poof!
She exploded into a cloud of skin particles as Mr. Chain extended out his left arm.
Burn Spell: [Flame Tsunami]
A deep orange flame shot out in a straight beam. Its sparkling deep shine turning into a wave of intense heat. All the nurses instantly went up in flames as the entire quart yard and street corner was obliterated in an inferno of fire. He listened to the screaming. The intense cries out. As their skin melted, as their bones burned, as they died from pure shock and pain. He watched as his tsunami of flames crawled up the wall of the hospital. As it latched onto the wooden and brick foundations, burning through the concrete walls and shattered glass.
Slowly the building started to burn down.
He then walked over to a flaming nurse, her mind still struggling to stay attached to this world.
Snatch!
He grabbed her chard barley alive husk by the head.
X Spell: [Reverse Sacrifice]
The burning nurse turned to dust.
Mr. Chain stepped back. His skin regrowing from the muscles to the follicles.
He stepped further back as the hospital went aglow. Patients and doctors jumping out the windows, screaming patients.
He was naked, his whole muscled-up body in view as the ash spread across the street.
He watched as the building crumbled to dust, as the lower foundations gave way to destruction.
Step...
Step...
Step...
He watched as a man walked out. A man on fire. A man standing, his eyes alive, slightly angry.
"I thought there were more with you? Did they also get burned?" asked Mr. Chain, his hands on his naked hips.
Damon walked out onto the street, his body burning, his skin sizzling. He waited until the flames disappeared, and for his skin to instantly heal back to normal.
Crash!
Crumble!
The building fell to ruin as ash slowly started to fall on the two naked men in the street.
Damon was slightly pissed off, "my friends... They survived... They left through the back... But you... Why would you do that? All those innocent people, are you a monster?"
"My name is Mr. Chain. You don't need to know my first, you probably have heard of me before?"
"Never."
"Hmph, then let me jog your memory."
Mr. Chain extended out his finger. He pointed at the half-naked Damon, his clothes chard and falling apart.
Burn Spell: [Ingnite]
Swoosh!
Damon was suddenly on fire. His body ablaze.
Mr. Chain stepped forward, "I am a Burn Witch. I am also the head of the Chain Family, but right now, I am the only one in that family. I have an alliance with the Immortal Horses and I'm going to kill you."
"I see you're getting straight to the point... But how are you going to kill me? You know that I am Immortal, right?"
Mr. Chain watched as Damon stood perfectly still, his body still on fire, his clothes now fully disintegrated. He watched as the flames fizzled out, as Damon healed in an instant.
"You are one powerful Immortal..."
Crumble...
The hospital crumbled in the background.
"Your right? How do you kill an Immortal...? Well, do you know how Burn Witches use their magic?" asked Mr. Chain his pointer finger extended out again.
"No. Mind telling me?" asked Damon back.
The two stood a good ten feet away from each other.
Mr. Chain held out his fingertip.
Burn Spell: [Eternal Flame]
A small blue flame appeared on his fingertip.
"Like all other spells, our flames are created by sacrificing our own bodies. That is a fact and nothing can disprove it, except, there are some rare Witches out there who have the power to take other people's lives and turn that into power. It has something to do with chemistry and genes, but those specifics I don't care about. The gist is that I can take other people's lives and sacrifice them instead of my own."
"What are you getting at?" asked Damon trying to get to the point.
The blue flame grew bigger.
"I am one of those rare Witches. They call it the Gift, and I can use Reverse Sacrificing to heal myself. You Immortals do it all the time, except at a much larger level."
His blue flame grew large and expansive.
"But again, that is not all. There is a reason why the Immortal Horses keep me so close. It is because I am the only one who can kill them. This is the Eternal Flame. A flame that never ends. Forever. For... Infinity!"
He held out the blue flame. It's dark and deep unforgiving nature. Filled with death and destruction in its unmotivated wake.
"This blue flame, instead of sacrificing my own body, will instead take from yours. It will suck up your soul for all of eternity. For all of infinity. Until you have nothing left."
"And what of it?" asked Damon.
They stared at each other. The eternal flame growing brighter, bluer, larger. All until it reached six feet tall and wide.
Damon stepped back sighing, "uhhhggg."
He looked at the crumbled building in flames. The fire trucks sirens on their way. He cracked his knuckles. He cracked his neck. He cracked his shoulders and elbows. He stepped up. He pointed out his hand, his open palm.
"I guess this is it... The first time I've felt this way... I haven't been this pissed off in a while. And that eternal flame or whatever it's called. I don't give a shit about it! I don't care if it can kill me or not!"
He stepped closer. He gripped his fists. His fingers tightened, his muscles tighter. He crouched down, his legs extended out in a stance-like he was getting ready to sprint. He extended out his hands, touching the asphalt ground, giving him stability.
"What are you doing?" asked Mr. Chain as the blue flame grew brighter.
"You know I competed in the first-ever Olympics. I won gold in the 100-meter dash."
"Hmmm... So now your at least two hundred years old?" asked Mr. Chain, the flame turning to the size of a full-blown elephant
"No..." Damon winked, "two hundred was yesterday."
PWOOOF!
He jumped out in a sprint. His legs carrying him one step faster than the last. He started to go faster than faster. His legs going faster and faster. Mr. Chain turned to release his eternal flame, but he was too slow. Damon had already lapped him, he was already behind him, his arm extended out. He jumped forward to punch.
"Even Immortals are afraid of getting burned!" Mr. Chain released his eternal flame on himself, engulfing his whole body in the blue instant death.
Damon didn't flinch.
He punched.
Smack!
Slam!
Thump!
Skid!
He hit Mr. Chain directly on the head.
He sent him flying across the ground, his body tumbling to the ground, his body in flames, Damon now in flames, blue flames, flames everywhere, eternal flames, burning, burning, burning.
Damon now felt it, the pain. The never-ending, never extinguishing. He thought it would kill him. Turn him to dust. But as he slowly started to die, his body started picking up the pace. He started healing faster and faster.
Not even the eternal flames could extinguish his life.
He now stood over Mr. Chain who lay beneath the flames of blue. His body flames of blue. He snapped his fingers.
"You don't think I can't extinguish my own flames?"
The eternal flames on Mr. Chains' body fizzled out as Damon stared straight ahead. The darkness of the night shinning a bright blue in his flickering glow.
The eternal flame started to spread, to his head, to his legs, to his fingertips. He was now fully engulfed.
His skin pealing. Burning. The pain.
But he just came back. Back to life. Over and over.
The pain of having to live.
Of being on fire.
Forever...
For Infinity.
