The World Aflame Book 1: Rise Of A Nation

Chapter 19: The Fire Queen

Karliah dropped onto the field from the sky. Black flames shooting from her feet as she landed, forcing the soldiers around me back. I reached out and struck another soldier, sending him flying. Then a wall of black fire surrounded me and Karliah in a barrier. I turned, to thank Karliah but when I turned I found karliah's eyes were pure black. The viens in karliah's arm we're bulging and we're also completely blackened.
"Are you okay," I asked worry entering my voice. She followed my eyes to her arms and shrugged.
"Yeah I'm alright. It always happens when I use my power."
"Are you sure," I asked.
"Yeah, it doesn't hurt. More importantly let's withdrawal we already got everyone out of here. Your flashy display made them completely forget about the CAUs they were chasing.
What about..." I was interrupted as I heard the soldiers on the other side of the barrier.
"Crap it's the fire queen. What's she doing here! One of them exclaimed.
Before I could ask what was going on. A crack of gunfire sounded off to my right and Karliah was sent rolling.
"Karliah!" I cried. I gathered energy in my fist and sent an exploding bolt hurling in the direction the bullet came from. I also raised a barrier of pure energy around us as I ran to karliah. But as it turned out she was already getting up.
"I'm fine," she said getting to her feet. She'd been hit in the abdomen but where blood was supposed to be there was just a hole clear through her body. On the edges of the wound was black fire.
" My whole body is made of fire," she explained. I can change between a solid state or my fire state.
"Huh I bet that could come in handy."
" Sure does!" Karliah said with a smile. "Because of this bullets themselves can't harm me but the kinetic energy they carry is still enough to stun me if I'm unprepared. Although I'm willing to bet you could turn yourself into pure energy of you really wanted to"
"Hmm, I don't really know if I could, I've never really tried." Bullets continued to ping off my barrier as we were talking. The bullets could do absolutely no harm to my barrier.
"Anyway we know they have been searching for our base and we cant let them get any closer. You know what we have to do right?" I nodded.
"You're right we need to drive them away if they get any closer they'll end up discovering it." Throwing my own feelings aside at attacking and possibly killing soldiers, i formed two balls of greenish blue energy in my hands and after closing my fist around the balls of energy i released it as a laser of pure heat energy. I preceded to sweep my hands across the horizon in front of me.
The result was gruesome to say the least. Blood splashed across the green grass as people and vehicle alike were cut in twain. The blood was followed by multiple simultaneous explosions as the vehicles and tank erupted in fire. Trees tumpled down as the forest was cleared to the sapling. In the distance a rather high hill was relieved of its top in an explosion of dust and rock. I stood in Front of the carnage my palms smoking still pointed at the horizon.
"Holy crap!!?" I exclaimed. Id come up with that move a while ago but had never used it. I had thought the most that wouldve happened would be some explosions. Enough the scare off the soldiers. I turned around to see karliah satnding behind me. Her flames had gone out and she was staring at me with a horrified expression on her face.
"What the hell was that!?" She screamed. I looked at my hands it dawning on me what had just happened.
" That wasn't supposed to happen." Was all i could think to say.
"That wasn't supposed to happen!? Then, what was supposed to happen?" I blinked unable to answer for a few seconds before simply answering "not that." I shoom my head trying to get my priorities in order. "We can discuss what just happened once we get back first we need to make sure the CAUs we rescued are okay. They are our priority." Karliah took a long look at the destruction i caused and then sighed.
   "You're right. But this discussion insn't over." I nodded my understanding. "I got it but we need to get going. So lead on fire queen."
   "Karliah threw a smirk over her shoulder. "If you start calling me that i'll make sure everyone in the castle refers to you as your majesty."
   I mock gasped" you wouldnt dare." She smiled as she took off into the sky on a trail of black fire.
  
   Thirty minutes after john and karliah had left a small convoy of armored humvees pulled into the clearing. Black and green fire still burned in the forest and smoke had encompassed everything. As the soldiers all in us military fatigues hoped out of the vehilces. They all wore the same expression on their faces. They were all horrified. One of the younger soldiers turned to the one of the others. This guy a short hair and and a finely trimmed beard. Specks of gray could be found within his beard his face was lined with. The tell tail signs of experience. The young soldier had much softer features and neatly buzzed hair.
   "You're telling me kids did this!?" He asked incredulously. As they moved through the smoke one of the soldiers tripped on something softer than a rock. When he looked down he saw a corpse cut in two and half burned. The mans face frozen with a terrified expression. The soldier averted his eyes but the mans face had already been seared into his mind. The soldier turned back to the older soldier
   "Seargent Harkley, What happened here?" "There's no way kids actually did this right. The old seargent looked at him. "I dont know. But what i do know that we were sent to find out what happened to the missing unit."
   " Well then we've accomplished our objective." The younger soldier said again. The older seargent simply sighed. "Yes private we have."