Burning Plains, Pt 8

A jet of the Ifrit's white-hot flames flash towards you, causing you to instinctively push back with your atmospheric bubble. By pushing a layer of compressed air forward just at the point of impact, you're able to repel and resist the flames coming at you and scatter it to the wind.

Though the column of flame is negated, your bubble also erodes to some degree - alarmingly so. You believe that the very act of it hitting direct flame erodes some of the oxygen bound in its form. Since you're forced to use the concentrated air inside to reinforce its protective outer shell, the entire bubble shrinks slightly as a result.

Still, it works magnificently and you're still alive… though for how long could you do this? You're surrounded by fire and being assaulted by some kind of fire devil. Whatever defenses you've got right now aren't gonna last very long against it.

While your mind races to find a way out of this, waves of frustration and annoyance waft off the Ifrit, along with hints of surprise and disbelief. Clearly it didn't believe that you could possibly fight back against it. Its mind also races, also searching for a way to end things quickly. 

Oddly enough however, you don't sense a lick of malevolence or hate. Rather, it seems to be driven by a simpler impulse - that of a need to be free. But somehow, it has also equated freedom with its own singularity, as though having other minds in its vicinity impedes its autonomy somehow.

In other words, it believes your very presence keeps it imprisoned, which is the antithesis to its existence.

Because of that, the Ifrit is driven by an instinctive need to neutralize you as fast as it can. But your defense clearly stymies it, to the point where it becomes visibly frazzled. The shape of its swirling flames literally spike outward in small pulses, despite its constant upward flow.

You sense its psionic energies rise up as it attempts to Scan you, but you quickly envelop both you and Noir in a powerful Cloak to keep your true abilities hidden. This allows you to repel its Scan, though you strain against its sheer psionic might. A spark of a headache forms as a result.

And for some reason the Ifrit itself doesn't attempt to hide its capabilities, which makes you believe that it might not exactly know more advanced techniques. Despite that, you can easily sense that it can channel as much energy as you, if not more.

Worse, the depth of its pool of energy is far greater than your own. No way could you last in a battle of attrition against it, especially considering that you're already half exhausted. 

But seeing as it's unable Scan you properly or fully, the Ifrit's flame body shifts and flares outward as its anger and irritation pulse outward. 

As the Ifrit moves and dances in the air in front of the shed, you realize that it's utilizing every part of its psyche to do so. It isn't simply shifting the air and flame with its Telekinesis, it's also keeping its physical form in relative shape through its Temperance. Not only that, when it attempts to Scan you, it also elevates its own ESP - likely in an attempt to better understand what it's sensing.

It lashes out again with another column of fire, which you now recognize is woven with multiple energies. It isn't just using its Telekinesis against you in the attack - it also has the energies of Surge and Scan woven all through it. 

Which means it senses and feels with every portion of its flame 'body', which it also keeps together purely through its willpower. You and Noir are overawed by the Ifrit and its reality - if not for the flame portion of its existence, it would be a purely psionic and intangible creature. 

But not so overawed that you don't defend yourselves from its powerful attack. It throws a massive blast of flame at you, one that's large enough to completely overwhelm the entirety of your bubble. It seems to have sensed exactly where you've placed your defenses, and is attempting to stamp it out utterly - you included.

The huge wave of flame washes over and around your bubble, filling most of the shed with a rush of flame. Though you're able to protect yourself and Noir, along with some of the things right around you, the rest of the shed's contents are instantly engulfed in flames. Bags of soil, the crates of seeds, the tools, the cabinet, the desk, the computer, all those papers scattered everywhere - everything around you catches alight and melts or bursts or cracks or blackens. 

Though your bubble keeps you relatively safe, you can still feel waves of heat pierce through. Worse, the bubble itself shrinks as its dense outer layer is shaved away.

Worried for your future, you reach outward with your Telekinesis and slam the sliding double doors closed, cutting off the blast of flame from the Ifrit. Though it's no longer directly hitting your bubble, the inside of the shed is still covered in flame. 

Worse, you sense that the Ifrit hasn't finished its attack, and is continuing to blast the shed with an unending blast of fire. You feel its energies wrapping around the shed's exterior, as it attempts to consume it in its entirety. 

Its heat is so intense that your bubble can hardly keep up. You begin to sweat profusely and pant heavily as the overall temperature rises higher and higher.

You sense Noir attempt to slash at the Ifrit with her Telekinetic claws, but no matter how much energy she pours into her attack absolutely nothing happens. She claws at it with near abandon, assaulting it with claw after devastating claw. 

The Ifrit pays them no mind, and hardly even recognizes them as attacks. Instead, it focuses more of its energies on the pyrokinetic blast sweeping across the shed.

And while you work out what you could possibly do, the heat from its flames begin to cause the far corners of the shed to glow a dark red. Some parts of it start to sag downward, which causes a great deal of fear to sweep through Noir. Your whole body shudders at the realization that it won't be long until you're completely cooked inside of a molten metal shed.

Driven by an impulsive need to survive, you gather up your energies and weave them into a powerful Telekinetic burst. You push your atmospheric bubble outwards violently in an attempt to counter all the flames around you by snuffing it out with a thick layer of air. 

At the same time, you infuse it with a powerful Surge - one filled with a deep sense of defiance. Instead of allowing them to mix together to create a combination power, you instead allow them to work in parallel. As a result, your defensive burst pushes a concentrated layer of air all around the shed's interior, snuffing out the majority of flames right around you. 

Even better, your Surge meets the Ifrit's pyrokinetic blast and fiercely pushes against it, ending the attack altogether.

You sense wide-eyed shock emanating from the Ifrit, as though it is utterly stunned by what you've done. While it recoups its senses, you do your best to draw your energies back in towards you, and re-form your atmospheric bubble once again. 

But this time, instead of sealing the shed from the inside, you do so from the outside, leaving a thick layer of highly condensed air just outside it. However, by doing so you've left the air inside the shed rather thin, and your mind starts to spin from the lack of oxygen.

You do your best to keep yourself together, to keep your mind sharp, but find the task more and more difficult as the moments tick forward.

We've gotta end this quick! Noir yells through the Network. 

I know, I know, you reply frantically. 

Well I can't touch the thing at all, and I've got no idea what to do!

I'm trying to figure something out, alright?

You glance at what's left around you that isn't already on fire, hoping to find something that can help somehow. There's your stuff, the hammock, and the tractor where Noir was sleeping under. 

You think to yourself that none of these could possibly do anything to change the situation. You might be able to extinguish the flame if you had a huge fire blanket perhaps, or if you had more water than a handful of bottles…

An idea strikes you out of the blue, causing your psionic energies to ripple outward powerfully. 

Use your TK to fling that tractor at the Ifrit! you tell Noir.

What? That's not going to do anything! she protests.

Oh, but don't throw it through the thing - keep it right in the middle of it, you continue unabated.

That's still not going to do anything!

Not by itself it won't, no.

Although Noir is completely confused by what you want, she still does as you ask regardless. She handily lifts up the heavy tractor even as you slide the double doors back open, then she flings the tractor right into the Ifrit's body. And also as you request, she keeps it suspended within its swirling form.

The Ifrit's flames are quick to burn up whatever it can. Parts of the tractor starts to glow red even as its rubber and plastic parts blacken and melt away. Even its thinner strips of metal and parts glow and warp and sag within the first few seconds.

So are you gonna do anything or what? Noir complains.

Just wait, okay…

Even as you ask Noir to be patient, the Ifrit launches an attack of its own. Once again, it tries to blast you directly with a jet of flame. But instead of getting through the open door and hitting you, it smacks against the seal you've formed just outside of it. 

And since it sees it can't get at you directly, it widens the jet until it envelops the entire front of the shed once again. Its flames rip and tear at your bubble, even as it spreads up and out and around.

Panic rises up sharply in Noir as the Ifrit once again attempts to cook you. Though your defenses are holding, it won't be long until it's gone. You simply don't have enough air to reinforce it with, and your own breaths get shorter and shorter as the attack continues. 

But the moment you've been waiting for finally arrives - most of the tractor's outer panels have long since melted or burned away, along with whatever small parts and wires inside. All that leaves the inner core of the vehicle relatively intact - the frame, the axle, the engine.

And more importantly, they're now glowing orange from the sheer heat of the Ifrit's flame.

So you summon up as much of your Telekinesis as you possibly can, which causes a spike of pain to shoot through your head. Then you reach down below the farmstead itself, far beneath the surface. Down there, you grasp at a massive amount of water inside of a large aquifer buried in between layers of rock.

Then you push upwards on them with every part of your being, causing the water to shoot upwards forcefully. The ground shudders beneath you as the pressure pushes up against the layers of soil and rock and sediment above it, as the pressure pushes the water up through the well with tremendous force.

Once out there, you use your Telekinesis to direct the violent water spout right at the Ifrit - specifically at the superheated engine itself.

Shut the door! you Telepathically yell at Noir.

And on realizing what you're doing, she quickly obliges. The doors slide shut solidly just as your water spout strikes the glowing engine. Though you don't see it, you know exactly what happens - there's a heavy CRACK as the engine itself shatters from the sudden change in temperature, along with a deafening BOOM as the water is instantly turned to steam.

You feel a wave of pressure strike you, even from the inside, owing to how powerful that blast is. Alongside that wave comes heavy metal shards striking the outside of the metal shed violently, some of which punch through the thin steel and embed themselves into the dirt around you. 

But the devastating moment is quick, and all goes still immediately after.

It takes a second for the both of you to gather yourselves, and when Noir slides the door back open the only thing either of you see is a massive blast mark where the Ifrit once floated. But otherwise nothing else remains. The ground around the point of impact is littered with numerous shards of the shattered tractor, each one a testament to your devastating attack.

Before either of you can relax, you sense small slivers of the Ifrit's consciousness spark up. They slowly begin to draw themselves back together, back towards the point where it last existed as a whole. Its thoughts and emotions once again start to swirl into being, though this time with much more fury and murderous intent than before.