Conflagration

"Why? Why?! We didn't do anything, to deserve this," he spoke, seemingly more to himself than me. A fat haggard man begged kneeling before me. As if asking a question while praying. The name of the man was Kraznys mo Nakloz. He had an oiled red and black beard, the same shade as his hair. The hatred in his eyes, and the look he was sending, me showed me that if he wasn't missing his legs, he probably wouldn't have been kneeling.

"Because you're fucking disgusting." I felt hatred like I had never felt before coursing through my veins. I had never been more honest, more angry. I was so angry, that I felt cold on the inside, so angry... yet my thoughts had never been more clear. "All of you fucking are. You're just savages, wild animals, beasts in human shape. It is only fair for me to treat all of you this way."

I slid my hand through the air in a cutting motion. It should have done nothing, but something did, something magical. The right arm of the man separated itself cleanly from his body, cut as if by a fast-moving sword.

A shout of pain escaped from his lips as he fell to the ground and began to writhe in pain. He was turning pale, taking a sickly shade of white.

I could see his eyes begin to gloss over. As if I would let him die so easily! I snapped my fingers, friction was heat, heat could be fire. The thrum of magic I could feel in my soul answered and fire appeared over my fingers before rushing to his bleeding stump to cauterize it with fire.

He yelled like a man possessed, like a man being inflicted with the worst torments imaginable, and it only made me smile.

"Yelling just because of a little fire?" I taunted him. "So disappointing coming from such an esteemed man like you."

"I… I can pay you," I heard him whisper. "I can give you all the riches of the world. I can make you richer than you can imagine. I beg you. Just let me go."

I crouched down before the man, locking eyes with him. "There are so many things wrong with what you just said, Oh good master."

I grabbed him by the neck, his body weighing like nothing to me. "Let me show you something," I told him, before beginning to drag him.

My gaze fell on a window, One which allowed me to view the entirety of the city. I pushed his face toward the opening "Look at your city. Look at it and tell me that you can still give me anything."

"How? My city, my Astapor?... What did you do to it?" he said, his voice feeble, like someone who had just learned a horrific world-shaking truth.

It was what happened after all. He was one of the good masters of Astapor, the equivalent of royalty here. What I was showing him was the destruction of everything he and his ancestors had ever built.

Astapor looked even more red than usual, blood having been plastered over every corner and street of the city. It was said that Astapor was built with bricks and the blood of the slaves who died doing so. Wasn't it fair then for the blood of the good masters to join the that of the slaves? After all, death came for all, and everyone was equal in it.

Flames and ash rose in the sky, turning it red. The smell of blood permeated the air, feeling so thick that I could almost taste it.

"I see that you finally understand," I told him. "You have nothing to offer me." I leaned toward one of his ears "And even if you did, it wouldn't have changed anything."

"What you're seeing right now good master, is just the beginning. Every city-state that has upheld slavery, that has allowed such depravity and suffering, will suffer the same fate."

"You're a fool!" the man spat his eyes still glued to the destruction before our eyes "You're going against the natural order of things. There'll be consequences, dire ones. Do you truly think you can win by yourself, against the entirety of free cities and their allies? Do you truly think you can win against the entirety of Essos?"

A mocking laugh escaped from his lips as he turned toward me "Did you even think about what would happen now that my creatures aren't there to push back the Dothraki? No, you probably didn't, but I expected as much, coming from you. You may have learned vile sorceries, but you are still nothing but the Lyseni boy toy I paid to warm my bed and entertain me."

Memories of his touch, of his skin against mine, of the pain, the disgust, of the shame assaulted my mind and made me want to vomit. Memories of so much agony that something had snapped and everything went black... I remember waking up in a literal dumpster, with what I knew had been bodily fluids coming from me and on my skin with the memories of a boy no more than thirteen who had all his life known only that his only goal was to pleasure others, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much he wanted it to stop.

I tried to push and crush those memories down, but I found myself unable to. It's as if, instead, I had strengthened them by thinking of them.

The worst, I think, was that those memories, more than being mine, were similar to something I had desperately tried to forget. They reminded me how naive, how weak, how hopeless I had been.

I could feel myself itching, my body and soul begging me to kill the man before me. It would be easy... Just one movement would be enough, just one movement and he would be dead.

The problem with that was that it wasn't enough. It felt too good, too peaceful for him. Watching the state of Astapor had shaken him, but that wasn't enough. I wanted to break him completely. I wanted to make him suffer as much as possible before killing him.

I smile at him to hide my thoughts and maybe trick myself into forgetting the fact that I just wanted to rip him apart with my hands.

Astapor had been a powder keg waiting to explode. The only thing that was needed was a spark. In another world, it would have been a silver-haired Targaryen girl with her dragons.

Here, in this world that should have been nothing but fiction, in this world I shouldn't have woken up in, it was me. I didn't care that sooner or later things would have changed due to Danaerys. I wanted things to change now. I wanted the suffering around me to stop. I wanted to avenge myself on the entire world that watched, and never did anything when it could have.

Normally, it wouldn't have been possible. Metaknowledge itself wouldn't have been enough. I knew stuff that could change things in the long run, but I wasn't sure that I was smart enough to try to introduce them efficiently.

What I had, gave me an edge, the possibility of changing the way the world worked was what felt like a second heart beating in my chest, what I knew, the words inscribed in my mind since I woke up with my soul as a magical reactor, the magical reactor of an Archmage.

It had grown since I began using my magic to free other slaves, strike and kill with it as if it fed on the blood I spilled and the destruction I created.

What was an Archmage? Were they just an advanced practitioner of magic? Was an Archmage just a superior form of mage?

I knew the truth of the matter, deep down. Comparing a mage and an Archmage would be akin to comparing an ember and the sun.

The magic I had used and the spells I had created had not been taught to me. They were spells I created only through following my own will.

"I want to show you something," I said to Kraznys still smiling at the man who had once been my owner.

I held him by the neck as if he were a disobedient kitten and climbed on the edge of the window.

"Why are you doing this? Are you not just mad but stupid as well?" the man shouted. I ignored him my, gaze turned toward one of the red pyramids of Astapor.

My brain was screaming at me to step back, to retreat away from what seemed a certain death. "Aegor! Stop!" the slave master shouted in fear.

"Why are you scared?" I spoke softly. "No matter what happens, you'll die today Kraznys. Are you so delusional that you think things can go back to the way they once were for you?"

The body of the fat man began to flail, moving wildly, trying to escape, to live longer. I ignored his threats, his shouts of anger and hatred, his shouts of fear. I guided the magic inside of me into the world with only a thought.

'What was an Archmage' I thought, taking a step into the air and not falling 'Other than someone capable of defying the rules of the world?'

I took another step, completely leaving the window. The man in my grasp had gone completely still. I turned to look him in the eyes and saw in them only horror.

I took another step as if I was taking stairs and rose. Excitement and adrenaline flooded my body and my mind as I literally walked in the air.

The wind rushed around me, embracing me as if I were its prodigal son who had returned. Below me, the screams, the shouts of Astapor, and the sound of metal tearing through flesh created a symphony that felt soothing to my senses.

I finally reached the top of one of the pyramids and landed in a little rectangular area.

"What kind of pact, what kind of abomination did you do to gain such power?" the shaking voice of Kraznys said to me. "I have never seen such a thing, from the warlocks of Qarth or wandering mage."

"Unfortunately for you Kraznys, I have made no pact," I told him. "This power, this magic, is all mine."

"Then... if it's the case, why didn't you use it before? I would have treated you differently if I had known! We could have become the rulers of Astapor, maybe all the free cities!" He sounded delusional, broken. Greed or maybe it was madness seemed to have taken hold of his senses.

"Maybe I didn't use it before because it required a condition like being on the verge of Death to activate it," I lied to him. Aegor, the one whose memories I had inherited hadn't just been on the verge of death. He had died, suffering, begging, praying for someone to make the pain stop.

"In any case, it changes nothing Kraznys. The only reason I haven't killed you yet was because I wanted to show you something."

I took a deep breath and turned inward, toward where I knew my magic was. I was familiar with fire. I knew, with both sets of memories I had, what it it felt like to be burnt by it.

I knew I could create fire. I already did so before when I wanted to cauterize Krasnyz's wound and stop him from bleeding out.

Fire was good, but it wasn't enough for what I wanted to create. I wanted something that would burn hotter, that would make sure that what I was doing would be felt and seen everywhere in Astapor and possibly beyond. I wanted to make sure that the good masters who were still hiding in their pyramids, who were protected by their slaves who stopped anyone from reaching them, were made to suffer.

I exhaled before focusing on the Pyramids in my sight, the pyramids I knew were hiding some of Kraznys's friends and family.

I directed my magic, letting it suffuse through the air and encompass the pyramids and only the pyramids.

I had been an avid fan of Star Wars before, especially Legends... well, before Disney had unfortunately made it non-canon.

One of the powers a Jedi was shown to be able to use was to create fire. It had been cool as fuck reading about it, but after I had wondered how it was possible... if it wasn't an asspull.

After all, it was only shown that force users were telekinetics and telepaths. I realized later that this was the reason why they could do so, that this could be an explanation for why force lightning could be used by the Sith and dark side users.

It began with the very very simple fact that plasma could be said to be fire, but fire wasn't plasma.

Fire in itself, especially when it was impure, no matter its color, didn't burn hot enough to create plasma, not enough ions.

Plasma in itself was more of a state of matter than anything else. What the bubble of magic I created did was allow me to control, everything inside it, as long as I could maintain it.

I could if I wanted to, unearth and break the Pyramids of Astapor, even if something told me that it wouldn't be a good idea, that it would be something I wasn't powerful enough to do now without a severe backlash.

Instead, I focused, turning my attention toward the unseen, the microscopic, to a point where I could feel the almost infinite number of atoms and molecules in my bubble.

If I wanted plasma, if I wanted flames no one would be able to avoid or survive from, I needed to make those little things vibrate.

'What about the innocent children of the Good masters of Astapor who did nothing? What about the slaves still imprisoned in those pyramids? Wasn't there a better, more peaceful way?' my inner voice spoke softly.

Children who had done nothing to stop the suffering? Who were able to be raised and live with the greatest luxuries because of slave labor, because of the suffering of slaves, because of the suffering of people like Aegor, because of my suffering? They could all go fuck themselves!

With a twist of my wrist, plasma consumed the pyramids in giant bonfires. The Pyramids didn't crumble, they didn't even melt. They vanished as if they were nothing but a mirage.

I turned toward Kraznys who was looking at the giant bonfires. "Maybe one of your family members or friends was inside and died without you being able to do anything, maybe even one of your children. This is the end of an era. This is the end of everything you stood for Krasnys, and it is just the beginning," I told him.

I held him by his neck, rising to a point where I could touch the clouds with my fingers if I wished to do so.

The man had unfortunately stopped moving, stopped reacting. He wasn't dead, my magic made sure that wouldn't happen without me wanting it to.

I brought him before me, my gaze losing itself in his broken one. "Sooner or later, I know that I'll die," I told him softly. This world after all was merciless, one so much more cruel and brutal than the one I originally came from. There were so many things that could be threats, like the white walkers beyond the wall of Westeros, the fact that I knew that sooner or later, I would be encountering other mages, mages who were native to this world and who only seemed to grow stronger through cruelty and evil rituals and so many other things I wasn't probably aware of.

"But when I do so, it'll be after living a life without any regrets, a life so full of joy and good moments that they will eclipse everything wrong you did to me." Those words felt like remnants of Aegor, feelings that had never been said but could finally be.

I stopped holding him, letting him fall to what would surely be his death. "Goodbye Kraznys," I whispered free of any shackles, the stars shining over me.