Sun vs Fire

A writing prompt promised to a friend as a gift

## Characters

* Sol: An invading war lord from parts unknown
* Chen: Prince of a kingdom filled with magic, mad science, and dinosaurs.
* Chaka: Chen's sister.

Part 2

* Fangtress: A native of the subcontinent, who works for Sol. She holds the sword Sun Bane, to counter Chen's new sword Frost Soul.

## Part 1

He sat there, on a simple throne of chrome and glowing white lines. It was much the same as the rest of the 'throne room'. It was spacious not the grand thing one would expect for such a place. The 'king' appeared to wear a suit of golden armor, intricate smaller slender plates that over lapped, with the chest piece, and the pelvic connection being the only real large solid pieces besides the helmet. From the helmet was just a face of darkness, a mass of shadow that gave the twinkling of the stars if one looked at it from the right angle. He sported a red pelvic curtain, and on his back were gun metal grey streaks of metal from which grew wings of sludge like magma that never flowed past the bottom of his rather small wings.

He sat there, leaning on one arm, and tapping the talons of the other. He was impatiently, patiently waiting for his 'guest's' arrival. He could hear the sounds of battle, see the battle reports in front of his eyes. The girl beside him prattling on and on about her brother was aware of none of this. He had stopped listening to her vent and rant and rage about her 'idiot brother' and the trouble he had caused with his 'constant crusading', 'misguided maxims', and 'idiotic endeavors'. She prattle on, stomping back and forth.

She was a young woman with long dark hair but the two locks besider her face were silver for some reason like her eyes. She wore a red crown, and wore a red form fitting suit, overwhich were her pieces of armor, magnetically attached to the hexagon grid of her suit. She sported a black cape with a red inside, which she hugged close to her, and fumed to the point her face's red flare could be seen beneath the tan complexion she was born with. Her armor was red for the most part, but also had black and sported spikes and bladed edges. In her had was a staff, a lance like spear made of a purple, blue hued metal, and its tip buried into the skull of some raptor like creature with twin stones in its eye sockets.

Finally the prattle was over, when the door were blown open. In they charged, humanoids, and saurian, humanoid reptiles, each with traits akin to certain popular species of dinosaurs. All of them wore a similar style of suit and space age knightly armor, but design to look more 'heroic' They were similarly armed with other forms of advance primitive weaponry; mace that expanded and generated eletrical fields, glaves and axes whose edge expanded out and glowed red hot, and similar swords.

Leading them all was a young man in golden armor over an orange body suit. He had locks of gold hair over his black hair. They all hung over one side, with the same color as his eyes, while his skin color was the same as the girl's. He came with a silver sword, Its blade was slender and chrome, more akin to a woman's blade, while the hand guard flared up at the end curled into the center,, pointing at the red gem in the center.

"Sol...!" the young man shouted "I've come to...sister....?" he paused upon seeing the girl and his warriors paused as well. The room shifted, expanding into a circular shape as columns formed from the roof and floor. "What are you doing here...?!"

"Simple..." said Sol "she has been trying to seduce me with her feminine wiles....and failing..." Sol said with a sarcastic tone. His voice was an echo from somewhere far away, but loud enough all the same.

"Oh.....!" he said with a wide eyed expression "You're here trying to convince him to stop...!" Even his men behind him rolled their eyes, face palmed or just shook their head in disappointment.

"He's...."

"Slow...." the girl replied.

"That sounds like an insult to slow people..." Sol replied as he stood up.

"Men..." the boy shouted "rescue my sister...!" The men roared and charge forward, only for blue beam to shoot out from the ceiling. Each of them was caught, locked in place, in a sphere of blue energy an hoisted up on their beams, into the air. A circle of blue energy was radiated inwards from the outer edged of the roof, locking the spheres in place, no longer needing the beams. "What have you done...?!" he shouted.

"Placed them in stasis...." Sol replied "They are still aware, still able to see, but not able to act."

"Release them, now...!" Sol was silent. He reached back and pulled out a short spearr made entirely of a silvery material, with a triangular spear head.

"I must ask...did you really think I was going to do that...?" The boy took a fighting stance, as Sol pointed to the side. There a passage way formed. "Leave..."

"What, why?!"

"Because, princess Chaka, your brother and I are about to clash, with swords of power, and you have none..."

"I am a mage..." she said grumbling

"But not an arch mage. Go..." She turned and left grumbling, as Sol turned to her brother. "Now prince... 'Chen' was it...?"

"Aye..." he replied "You said swords of power, but I'm the only one with a blade here." Sol said nothing but held his spear up to the side. From within it came a white hot glow causing it to grow. The spear head elongated and became more curvy and ornate, the shaft became much longer. The white hot glow became a gilded coloring all over it.

"Yes, well contrary to the term, they are not all swords..."

"Then why call them swords of power...?" Chen asked, as a serious question, in this serious moment. A fact that clearly baffled the angelic creature as he turned his head slowly from his weapon to the boy. "I mean, swords of power does imply swords. Like mine, the sword of Rantor. This blade has been handed down by successive lines of kings. Housed in it sit he fable stone of Rantor which he gained from defeating an otherwordly dragon. He plucked out its heart and it crystalized into this stone, and later added to this blade..."

"I just made mine..." Sol's wings unfurled from clumps of magma to luminous mass of red light. Around his waist came a red skirt with gold trimming, while his pelvic curtain gained symbols in red.

"Oh super form...right..."

"Sword of Raptoor, I HAVE THE FLAAAAAME!" He shouted as he raised his sword into the air. The red gem glowed and magic flames rose up around him swirling. When they were done, his armor had become a full body suit of red with yellow etchings. The blade had became a golden thing, with large, bronze handguard, with a second layer that curved down. "Come Sol, you will pay for the pain you've caused my kingdom...!"

"Pfft, you speak of pain and yet you fight to doom these lands..."

"What...?" Sol had moved quickly, flying not as a creature who needed to flap his wings, but simply will it. He was in front of Chen and swung his spear like a bat, with one hand. Thought he blocked, instinctively, Chen found himself thrown back, thrown threw the blasted doors he had knocked down. Chen was sent skidding, skipping against the ground, before he stopped himself by plunging his sword into the metal floor.

Within a second he pulled it out and blocked the downward strike of Sol's spear. Lightning crackled and shot of the two blades as the connected and the floor beneath Chen bent in, leaving him in a makeshift crater as the angeloid pressed down on him.

"You know nothing, you understand nothing! The 'magical energies' of this sub-continent, the sheer absurdity of it all, tugs and pulls at the fabric of reality, left unchecked it will that fabric..."

"Again with this madness?!"

"Madness...?" Sol pulled off his spear, and kicked Chen up into the air and away. He readied his spear to be thrown, voltage arc back forth its length. With one chuck it became a bolt of lightning that struck the prince in the air, causing an explosion before returning as several arcing bolts of electricity that merged in his hand and reformed into its spear shape. Chen meanwhile, was sent flying into a column denting it. Upon impact a yellow aura flashed around his body, a protective ward from his sword. "I've explained it time and again. The Superium shards, that shattered over this land, that made this land, that amount of sheer, raw hyper-dimensional energy cannot be allowed to continue to flow freely! Even your ancestors knew this, and they tasked and tools the various magical artifacts and items, even some of the races to chain these chaotic energies! Energies you let loose! You think the constant storms, earthquakes and disasters, you think that was my doing, it is what drew my attention to your worthles island!"

Chen, propped himself up with his sword, fighting onto his feet. He then took a fighting stance, eyes filled with anger.

"And that excuse eradicating my friends?!"

"You're as much to blame for that as my machines. They are were simply designed to soak up the radiance hyper energy, that said energy is merged with the DNA of several of the species here...is trivial to me..."

"Trivial?!"

"I may not have come here to commit genocide, but if the protection of this universe means some sacrifices have to be made."

"Monster...!" Chen shouted "Sword of Raptoor, give me Cretaceous Flames...!" Starting from the base of the blade came a swirl of fire that shot of like a current towards Sol, who did nothing to dodge, block or avoid it in anyway. He simply let it slam into his chest looking down at it. He placed his free hand into and pulled out a lump of fire, a lump that grew into a sphere which he chucked at Chen. Chen swung his blade, cutting the fireball in half.

"Tell me, if that did not work last time, why would it work now...?!" Chen growled and charged, lunging into the air, and swinging down. Sol simply side stepped and swung his spear into Chen's chest, sending him through a wall, leaving his sword behin plunged into the metal floor.

"You won't get away with this...!" Chen said as he held his side, slouched against a wall in the room.

"Get away with this...? I have not interest in your friends' extinction, I do not even care about this worthless little sub-continent you call an 'island'. What I do care about is for the dangerously high levels of otherwordly energies to be brought back down to safe levels before critical mass is achieved. If that means some of your friends have to go, so bet it, but it's that or allow this planet, your home included, to be sucked into a singularity. Time is of the essence...!"

"The typical ravings of a bad guy!" Chen said. He outstretched his hand, and Sol, his body shined with a bright light from within, a light that contracted into itself, taking him with it, as he disappeared. Meanwhile Chen's sword flew past where he was, blade first, before throwing its hilt into Chen's hand. Then the flash of light returned, now in the air, and Sol came down, swinging his spear downward.

Chen rolled to the side, instead of being stabbed with the spear's head, and got up, putting up his sword to block Sol swing, sending him into the wall. Sol moved, pinning him down with his spear.

"Bad guy, that's what you think this is about, cops and robbers?! Tell me, when you destroy me minion, lay waste to my fortresses and cast my broken carcass from its walls, how are you going to fix the problem you started? The 'Wild Magic' won't go away because you ask nicely. It is a chain reaction, a cascade cataclysm that ends with the end of everything!"

"Shut up!" Sol kicked him throughte the wall.

"Shut up? That's it, in the face of this chaos, of the conundrum that brought us together in conflict, that's your answer, 'stop talking about it'? What fool died and made you king, brat?!"

"My father, the man you killed...!"

"So the son of a fool, is also a fool...but no, you were elected by those in power, who wanted a pawn, not a leader." Sol spun the spear above his head, gathering a charge before he swung down. Chen stood up to block it but found himself on his knees again, the blade above his head. "You're a captain, not a general, perhaps you can inspire your men to fight and die for you, but you could no more lead a nation than a cub could lead a pride..."

"You know nothing about me...!"

"I know enough, and I am....unimpressed..." Chen stood up. At first he thought he had overpowered the large foe, only to struck in his chin by the staff's butt and senet flying back across the room. He his the ground face first, and bounced, each hit came with a flash of yellow before he stopped. Before he could respond Sol came down, stabbing his spear into his gut.

Instead of piercing the armor and flesh, there was a yellow aura as Chenc screamed out in pain. The aura protected him,but it could not protect him from the instense pressure being forced onto his innards, the metal beneath him bending inward.

"Tri...triassic flames!" Chen shouted. A bubble of yellow energy expanded outward from his sword, that pushed Sol back. Now in a dome of energy, Chen sat up, getting on to one knee and holding his sword with both hands. "Triassic flames, burn away my injuries...!" The yellow aura became a yellow flame, in which Chen stood up, his strength renewed. He swung his blade, quenching the fires, and lunged towards Sol.

Sol raised his hand, palm pointing to the floor, and fired bolts of electricity into it. The energy shot up as a column, catching Chen, who screamed in pain before Sol pointed his palm at him, the voltage now throwing him back, smashing the makeshift thrown and smashing the walls. Chen got up and charged, lunging and swinging down. Sol side stepped. He countered the following side swing with a swing of his spear, and held the spear with both hands and proceeded to continuously stab at Chen. Chen was being forced back, being forced to constantly block, counter, or deflect blows. More than once his blade was being redirected out of the way only to be stabbed by the spear head, or struck by the spear's end. Each blow came with with a flash of yellow, an ablative disperse of energy to soften the blows.

"Face it, you're a pathetic leader, a poor excuse for a prince, a bumbling fool, an imbecile more apt for drowning yourself in carnal desires than commanding the fates of men."

"You sound like my sister...!"

"She has a point. Afterall, unlike you or your fooll father, she came here to discuss the issue. She suggested a temporariy evacuation, until my work was done. What did you say to that...?!"

"Cowardice. The kingdom of Raptoor does not hide!"

"Hubris. You lot couldn't bare to hold the same of running away, so you ran straight into death. How many people have died because of your father's decree, how many saurians and other mutant folk withered and died because he refused to open the gates?"

"That is your fault! Not his!"

"Oh, a daddy's boy?"

"Shut up!" he roared as he lunged forward with a swing, a wide open swing that left him vulnerable. Sols pointed his spear and shot a bolt of lightning into Chen's chest, sending him flying.

"A leader who can't even own up their own mistakes, is a poor leader indeed. You are so gladly willing to law the fault of these deaths at my feet, but I'm just here trying to stop the problem you started. You have no solutions to this problem, and you think killing me is going to change that, going to save this land?"

"My father did the best he could...!" Chen said getting up.

"Your father damned his people in the name of his pride. I know this, because before all of this started I explained it to him, the problem. He called me an 'invader', as if he had anything of worth for me to take."

"My kingdom is great and powerful..."

"This is the fate of the world 'child', not a measuring contest in kindergarden. That said...'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result...' We've had this conversation enough times already. If you will not be part of the solution...then you are a problem that needs to be dealt with..." Sol held the spear with both hands to his side, like a sword. He pulled his hands together, the shaft shrinking into a sword handle, as the spear head lengthened into a blade, which erupted with flames. The hand guard became a spiral of metal and at the bottom was a clear crystal that filled with red light.

Chen simply stood up, and roared, runnig sword to his side and up, his intent to swing blatan, obvious. Sol swung, and Chen swung, the two swords clashed. Voltage and flames spewed from the two of them clashing streams of cosmic energy. Then Sol, repositioned himself, his sword forcing Chen's down. Sol then swirled Chen's sword around before slamming it into the ground, and he then slashed up.

Chen screamed in pain, the flaming sword had cut through his right arm, right above his shoulder. The wound was cauterized but the wound was not painless. Sol delivered a kick to his sternum, sending him flying backwards into the remains of the throne.

"You... you won't..." Chen said weakly.

"Get away with this...child, know you nothing of warfare...? I've been winning this whole time." Sol plunged his blade into Chen's sword. There was pulse of red and yellow light and voltage erupt from it, as Chen gasped. He felt a sudden surge of energy, leaving him, as his armor and appearance returned to normal. The light from his sword finally died down as he tried in vain to reach for it, passing out.

In walked his sister, who pointed her staff at him, firing a green ray of energy that held him aloft.

"Did you really have to take so long...?" she asked annoyed.

"Flesh...burns, blood, spills, bones, break, but to shatter a man's spirit is to truly destroy him...." Sol replied as he turned his sword upward, lifting Chen's blade.

"And now that you've shattered a 'boy's' spirit...?" Sol's blade quenched its flames as she took the blade of raptoor.

"I am not am not amused...." His sword returned to its spear form.

"Still, I assume our deal still stands...?" Sol made a movement from his chest, a chuckle, if anything else.

"Yes, your 'heart of raptoor' shall remain untouched by the filters, so you may, reforge your trinket. In the meantime the other filters will have to work double to collected the wild magic, less the cascade event go off. Your people..."

"I have smuggled out as much of the affected as I can, they are being sent to the ancient temple where the heart resides."

"And no one can stop you...?"

"My fool of a father is gone, and my brother is defeated, put into a coma by his injuries. Of course there are those who would ruin all of this..." She said looking up.

"So be it..." He raised his spear, firing bolts of electricity into each of the capture sphere above them.

## Part 2

Chen was silent. He stared at the cybernetic replacement for his right hand, made of the finest quality materials, and covered in runes, and given a golden finish. It was 'cold'. It 'felt' cold. The connections with his nervous system was there and he could feel the new mechanical replacement for his arm, but it 'felt' cold. More accurately he simply didn't feel the warmth of his normal arm, a thing he didn't really notice until now that it was gone.

He remembered the hot flash of pain, when it was taken, and he remembered the cold indifference of the one who took it. He clenched his fist, as the transport jumped up, going over a bump.

"We're almost there..." said the driver.

"So what's the plan...?" the female warrior asked. She wore the same chrome armor as the others, as the prince, armor sporting the emblazed symbol of a flaming heart, on their chest pieces, and in red and yellow on the pelvic curtains they all wore.

"We find Sol, and we kill him..."

"And then...?"

"And then we do as we please. It all starts with Sol, and it will end with him. Without Sol all of this fall aparts. It's his magic that keeps the pylons in the air, and his magic that keeps them running. It's his power! Cut that off, and the whole system fails."

"But how do we get to him..."

"Easy, the pompous bastard would never suspect anyone can harm him. Once we bypass his army he will rip for the taking!"

"There is not much time, left..." said another solider "The crusade is gathering for battle, all of our supporters. If we fail we may never get another chance to slay the false celestial."

"We are with you..." said the female warrior.

"Thanks, my friends..." Chen said. With his mechanical hand he lifted up the sword. Its blade was curved with numerous crescent cutouts, and a talon like spike on the butt o the handle. Said handle was black with cold blue hued metal, and several blue stones that held a faint glow. Meanwhile the blade was covered in frost, it was ice cold metal that brought the temperature in the transport down, when it was unsheathed. Everyone's breath was now visible. "My mistake last time, was trying to fight fire with fire, but that one was a bigger flame...we need to quench it."

"And why is your brother, out and about...?" Sol asked from his makeshift throne. At his command seat he pressed buttons on the touchscreen hologram images bringing up information, or controlling something. The Princess, the Queen, sometimes doubted he was actually doing anything.

"The Pure Heart Crusaders..." she replied "Your...purging of the of the non-humans, intentional or not caused a rise in popularity with this group of non-human haters. They wish for the kingdom to be 'pure'. However, with my brothers defeat and our alliance, evacuating non-humans from danger zones, that support turned against, you and me..."

"You would think you would've seen this coming...."

"Indeed, but they were a small but vocal minority, they could not be a threat to my forces and yours...until of course they freed the prince..."

"A legitimate heir, and figurehead to put them in power...how adorable. Magic, and advance tech, dinosaurs...and yet humans are still being human beings..."

"You speak as though you've met our kind before..." Sol immediately turned to her with eyes that pierced through her.

"I have seen the cradle world of your species, it is not here. Your kind has spread themselves far and wide...as though they were hounded by extinction itself."

"...What...are you...?" Sol went back to his tasks.

"I am old..." He turned to the side "Fangtra...!" From behind Sol's throne she walked out. She wore a brown and pink bodysuit, sections of which were sectioned off and made baggy. Even so, it did not hide her amazonian build. She was muscular, tall, with brown and blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. Her armor was gold hued while she wore wrappings instead of shoes, and sported several pouches wrapped around her waist or thigh, and a cloak with a downed hood. As she stepped into the light, Chaka noticed the spots on her cheeks near her side burns and immediately guessed what she was.

"I...I would not have guessed one of 'your kind' to be working for him..."

"My 'kind'?" Fangtra asked, her tone practically a growled.

"You know she meant no offense..." said Sol in the tone of a tired old man "so why do you take offense...?"

"Sorry, I just..." she took a deep breath. "So your brother is coming here."

"Where else would he attack...?" Sol asked "He most likely assumed that slaying me will topple this whole operation..."

"Would it...?" Chaka asked, concerned.

"They are called 'back up systems' princess, That aside, he will be here soon enough..."

"How do you know...?" Fangtra asked.

"I can sense, 'it', I can practically smell its fouls magics on the air. You call them 'purists' but I wonder if they even know what 'purity' is." Sol said growling. Fangtra raised an eyebrow. She had heard him shout,, raise his voice, but Sol was generally a monotone thing. Now he seemed ready to jump out of skin and slaughter someone as he spoke about this object.

"What is it...?"

"Heresy so cold it burns... A cold fire made to quench a star."

"Dark magic..." Chaka said with a tone of shock "The crusade dares to use dark magic, and talk about 'purity'...?! My brother...?!"

"Is an idiot..." said Sol "Who feels justified in anything he does because he is 'the hero'. They buffoon started this mess, I have to clean it up, he and his father block my path in diplomacy and war...but I am the villain, because people have died for this, died to stop this calamity. Now he holds a sword drowned in darkest necromancy that radiates death and cold."

"A sword made to kill you..." said Chaka "I know not the extend by which you can survive, but if you die...well no one knows how to control these machines, my kingdom..."

"Fangtra..." said Sol "Show the princess what you will bare to arms against the prince and his blade of winter's touch." From beneath her cloak Fangtra drew a blade. It hilt with flared up and made to resemble a fire, asymmetrical, with a red stone set in the middle, a ruby oval that was opaque and glowing subtley. The handguard was polished bronze, the handle was black and red leather, and the bottom was a sun face. The blade was dagger length, straight and seemingly simple.

Fangtra's eyes glowed yellow and lines of energy rose up the blade, glowing from within. The tip extended with a bright golden glow, an aura surrounded it, as it became a long sword. With every small flicker of her hand, there was a small, subtle puff of fire as the blade interacted with the atmosphere. Chaka, however, didn't feel the raw heat that was being held by the blade's magic, she felt the warm ligt of a sunrise.

"This..." said Sol "Is Sun Bane..."

"Bane...?"

"Forged from the remnants of a dead star, the light and fire that would've lit and warmed a world, are stored in that blade. It's place of power is called the Sun Pool, where nothing mortal dare stand. Its power is the summer to the winter in your brother's hands"

"You could just kill him..." said Chaka

"I am not in the mood, I have other things to do than school our brother, besides, I promised her this; a chance to put his blood on her blade."

The soldiers of Sol, were silvery copies of their master, with wings of white ribbons of light, and bearing halberds. With them were slender silver dragonoids, draconic automatons covered in polished chrome plate and sporting rubies for eyes. Their wings were structures of chrome, but the membrane was a hexagon pattern made of solid light. Standing like winged tyrannasaurs they hovered in the air and spot photonic blasts down on the enemies of Sol.

The crusaders countered with their own soldiers in chrome armor, many, the true members wore exo armor, many of which had back thrusters allowing limited flight. They were armed with swords and shields, and some blaster cannons, while their vehicles came with large antennae on necks, with four square petals covered in crystal layers and a central crystal. The whole thing was stationed on a retractable mechanical arm, and fire rays that resembled lightning to take down their foes.

The two traded blows, Sol's forces releasing bolts of lightning from their halberds, and the crusaders firing back maser blasts from their vehicles or energy blasts from their firearms. Outside the chrome pyramid, around which hovered obelisks they fought. The obelisks hovered, chrome with white lines of white, but beneath they were glowing golden magic circles in groups of three. These were the pylons mentioned before, those which drained the land of its arcane energies.

Chen charged across this battle field, with a swing of his sword, any angeloid that attacked him was caught in a wave of ice, and left frozen. Even when a dragnoid landed in front of him, he slammed the blade into the ground, releasing a wave of 'anti-heat' in a form of a blue light, that left all it touched frozen. To weild this the gauntlet on his remaining arm had to be encased in runic armor, to protect it.

Chen and his companions made their way towards the chrome pyramid, to the stairs that lead up to the entrance. There was where they were stopped, not by soldiers, or the dragon robots, but by a blast of fire that lit a blaze in their path. Down came Fangtra, sword in hand, in its dagger form, her glare felt even across the distance.

"Traitor...!" shouted Chen. "I always knew you were trash, Fangtra, but I never would've imagine your treachery would sink so low! And...that sword, it's his isn't it?! Now you use his junk like some revolting scavenger...?!" He swung his blade, firing a wave of cold to put out the cold.

"Tell me, did you object...?" Fangtra asked. She raised her blade, and her eyes turned golden as the blade extended and glowed.

"Object to what...?"

"To your father's folly."

"My fa- My father was no fool, he saw Sol for what he is, an invader, here to reshape our kingdom under his petty excuse! Even now he drains the land of its life giving magic!"

"The land will survive, and with his alliance with your sister, no more people need to suffer and die..."

"My sister, I will make that snake answer for her crimes also...!"

"So...you don't care that your father's decree condemned thousands to needless death?"

"Those are Sol's fault, if he had keeped his nose out of our affairs...!" Fangtra leaped and came down swinging her sword down. She slammed it into the ground releasing a pulse of heat and fire that knocked the two back. Chen's female companion was knocked onto her back, but she got up and pulled out a blaster firing and energy bullet. Fangtra blocked it and swung down an arc of fire onto her.

"Sansa...!" Chen shouted, but it was too late, she was consumed by the fire, a mass of blackened ash breaking apart and melting metal.

"Oh you'll get over it..." Fangtra said "Your harem is big enough as it is..." Chen sneered. His runic gauntlet lip up and he held the blade with both hands.

"I should've known you would betray me, you always refused me..."

"Do you understand the childish logic of that...?!" Fangtra replied.

"Silence, trash...!" Chen lunged forward swinging, but Fangtra simply raised her blade. The two blades did not meet, their opposing powered repelled each other. Pushed as Chen could muster, he could go no further, with Fangtra's feet planted firmly on the ground the vortex of air that resulted from this meeting of blades eventually picked him up and sent him flying backwards.

"What was that...?!" he shouted. Fangtra didn't answer, not with words, she swung down, creating a fire ball that was arcing down at him. Chen pointed his sword, firing a beam blue icy energy that caused it to implode and then explode, knocking him back even further. Fangtra charged, sword to her side, and came in for a death blow at Chen, only for a crusader to step between them. He raised his sword, trying to block Fangtra's strike. Instead her sword, went through his like butter, and his person did not much better cutting him in two from shoulder to thigh.

Chen fired his sword's beam at her, encasing her in ice. For a moment he was ready to laugh, when her blade shined and the ice shattered, evaporating instantly in the golden rays of the blade. Something about it stung him, 'stung' his mechanical arm, a discomfort he felt on an instinctual level, flowing from his arm. He raised his blade and generated a greyish blue light of his own. Immediately winds began to pick up around them, forming a tornado. While the sword bearers were obscured, the winds could not hide the light, which grey and morphed into armored warriors. Fangtra's light became a golden angeloid, not unlike Sol, bearing a blade sword. Chen's light became an armored reaper like thing with a blade made of howling ghosts and wings composed only of bone. The two spectral busts, were animate, and begun to swing at each other. Each connection of their sword, for however brief, was a burst of competing energies that harassed the battlefield around them.

"Why are you doing this?!" Chen shouted "Why are you helping Sol...?!"

"My family is dead because of all of this...!" Fangtra shouted back

"That is Sol's fault...!"

"It is your fault! Sol is only here because of the magic you unleashed with your idiotic adventures, magic that was tearing the land apart with storms, earthquakes, and whateve disasters it could cough up! That is what drew Sol here, the symptoms of a worse calamity! One you caused...!"

"We would've found a way...!"

"We don't even know how the magic works! Sol does, he understands all of it, he made this sword, with powers to rival your own ancient blades, he made this last week! And he made it clear there was no longer enough time to sit and reforget the artifacts you destroyed, the magic has to be sealed now! He told you this, he told your father. He went to you for a peaceful solution, a bloodless solution and you denied him!"

"He still killed those people...!"

"Who cares?! It was that, or wait for this whole blasted world to be destroyed by your f\*&k up! Of course he acted as he did, you two left him with nothing but terrible choices!"

"I am not your enemy, Sol is-"

"Sol is working with your sister to evacuate the vulnerable people! Had you father not been as big of a pompous fool as you, my family would still be alive, there would be no war, none of this death! I don't even know what Sol is going to do with this magic, but it's blatantly clear he has no need or interest in it. He's only here to solve the problem YOU MADE!!!" Their avatars continued their struggle. "Well?! Where is your retort, where is your response, your answer to that?!"

"...Wait...you're not a human...?" There was silence. Fangtra's avatar paused mid swing and pulled back its blade, before Fangtra let out a blood curdly roar of a beast. In response her avatar motioned a deep breath, and vomitted a deluge of fire, on Chen's,, enveloping it with flames before it contined with a powerful downward swing. The tornado was destroyed by a burst of fire, and Chen instinctively crossed his arms fear. His blade however, moved on its own, enveloping him in an aura of its light as the flaming deluge came and swept him away, washing much of that section of the battle field in flames

Chen awoke to the sound of...what could best be described as laughter, a strange thing. He got up steam rising from his body, melting ice and looked around. Patches of fire were about the place and he saw Fangtra walking towards him. He stuck his blade tip into the ground, immediately freezing it, and used it to get up, aiming his sword at her. He noticed that the strange chuckling was coming from her.

"Why are you laughing?" Chen was confused "You never laughed! You laughed, at not one of my joke...!"

"You were never funny, and I, like all my kind, laugh when we really want to kill something..."

"That's freaky...!"

"That's our nature..."

"The nature of freaks...!" Suddenly the flames around them began to dance unnaturally. They move, sliding across the ground, to form a large circle as a wall of golden characters appeared around the, connected by fire. "This your doing...?!"

"I'm not a spell caster..." Suddenly their swords pulsated. They each looked at them. "Oh..."

"Oh...?" Chen replied her looked at her sword "Wait, yours...?"

"They are reacting to this strong magic around us..."

"Reacting, you talk as if they are alive..."

"They are magic, you fool, they...they have will towards them. Afterall, your saved you..."

"What...? How...?"

"Sol trained my with this blade, I felt it, Your sword reacted on its own to save you from the fire..." Chen looked at his blade, then found himself blocking as Fangtra had quickly closed the gap between them and swung. As before there was a pulse of energy, a reaction, stopping them from truly colliding. Chen pushed forward, pushed back, and Fangtra flipped back and landed on her feet, before swinging her sword, creating a trail of fire, and taking a stance.

"Damn it, if this was my old sword, you would be dead by now!" Chen shouted as he rose up.

"If you were wise, you would abandon that blade, and this foolhardy crusade...." said Sol's voice in the air appeared a mass of flames that roughly shaped itself into the shape of a head, with two golden lights serving as eyes.

"Sol, you coward, come out and face me...!"

"No, I think there are more productive wastes of my time. I will say it again, abandon that sword, if you care for the sanctity of your death..."

"To abandon this now, would be death, you old fool...!"

"There are worse fates than death. One must wonder if they know or cared about what they dug up. For a group that calls itself 'Pure' they care not that they would make use of solid heresy. I have seen many blades like this one, many weapons drenched with the same abyssal power that radiates from your sword, filling the air with its stink..."

"So, you do fear this blade..."

"I am disgusted by that blade..."

"Disgusted by death...?!"

"Death is my brother. You think I fear kin? No, what radiates from that blade mocks and insults him. It mocks and insults my sister Life. It mocks and insults me, as I make sanctified the proper order of things. You bear an insult to my family and damnation upon your soul."

"You are afraid...!" Sol sighed.

"Brother was right, he is the only the cure for fools. Fangtra end this fool."

"With pleasure..." she said. She gripped her blade tightly, as red voltage shot up and down the blade, causing smal eruptions of fire. Then she lunged forward and swung, releasing a wave of flames. Chen countered with his own wave of cold, but Fangtra was gone. He looked up and she was in the air swinging down, sending another arc at him. He countered, but she had dove down and swung again. He countered, but she swung again and again, pushing him back. Then finally she stopped and plunged her sword into the ground, and twisted it. A fire twirl arose around her and expanded out, mainly at Chen's direction. Startled he swung his blade rapidly, but the arc of winter energy did nothing but evaporate before he got his wits and did the same trick, creating a tornadoe of blizzard winds around him to counter the fire.

Then it all stopped. The blizzard overtook the fire storm, and expanded and evaporated as it stretched itself thin quickly. Chen suddenly felt the searing hot pain in his chest, and he couldn't scream, the shock was too much. The pain was were his heart was. He looked down to see Fangtra's blade loose its glow as it retracted to dagger length.

"Fool..." Fangtra said as he fell to his knees. He could feel it, the cold of his arm spreading, and the hot pain in his chest dying, he was dying. "You truly thought you were special, beyond reproach, but this is your fault, all of it your fault. Now you reap the rewards..." She turned and walked away as Chen fell onto his side.

"Your task is not complete..." said Sol. A beam of greyish blue light radiated from Chen's body, a swirl of cold icey wind rose up around him, seemingly picking him up and putting him down on his feet, feet that he stood up on. When the wind died down Chen raised his hands and looked at them. He was covered in ice, and he feel that same cold from his arm, from his sword, all over his body, especially in his heart. The wound now seem to be a deep dark hole from which a cold mist escaped. "What...is this...?" Fangtra asked as she lenghtened her sword again.

"Damnation. He is neither living or dead, animated now by the energies of death. He is an undead, an affront to life and a mockery of death." Sol's voice boomed in the air with disgust. "Cut down..."

"Me...?" said Chen. His hair was now snow white, and his skin grey paler and more gaunt as black circles formed around his eyes "cut down by scavaging trash...?!" A gale of deathly cold winds wrapped themselves around Frost Soul's blade, as he charged forward. Fangtra charged her blade, flames wrapping around it as she lunged forward with a stab. Chen swung his sword to deflect the thrust, as as their blades where about to connect the energies that shrouded them interacted.

A pulse, a localized sonic boom, repelled the two blades from each other and rebelled away the two combatants, who stumbled away. Chen, however was first to his feet and charged, thrusting upward. Fangtra countered with a downward swing, and again, that same repulsive pulse knocked the two back. However, while Fangtra was being shocked and stunned by the pulses, Chen was not, its like he could feel the waves of energy and their effect on his body,

He swung and stabbed again, and again. Each time, there was the pulse, a reaction brought on by Fangtra blocked, deflecting, or even trying to parry. However, it was obvious what would happen, and it did happen. Her defenses were worn down, she was finally caught of guard. She couldn't even shriek in pain, her breath was cut off from the ice cold, numbing pain of the blade going though her abdomen and coming out her back. All she could do was fall on her knees, plunging her blade tip first into the soil to lean against.

"It's over, you revolting scavenger..." he said "And when I'm done with your master will be the next to feel the bite of my-" Fangtra stabbed her blade into the ground in front of her, from which erupt a high pressure deluge of flames that sent Chen flying backwards, protected by the icey aura his sword generated around him. He hit the ground on his back, and immediately the flames were gone. He got up and looked at Fangtra who was trying to stand up, but couldn't. The wound in her guts were frozen solid and made moving difficult. "You think that would stop me, I am Chen, prince of this lands, descended from those that commanded the powers of creation, one of which is in my hands! You're just a scavenger, a traitor to your own land, who bent the knee to he who should be your enemy!"

"I...." Fangtra started "am just a soldier with a mission, and you...you're just a slave to your own damn delusions..." She stood up, bearing the pain of her wound as the blade of her sword generated a golden light. It was the light of first dawn, of a new day, of new growth, and as much as her body loved its glow, Chen's hated it. The ice of her wound, evaporated and the frost bite around it began to fade away like fog of a mirror as her wound closed and disappeared. All the while Chen recoiled away in pain, crossing his arms over his face, and generate an icey vortex around him. Still his body steamed and was wracked with pain.

When Fangtra was done new growth had sprung up beneath her, green grass and flowers on what was once a blasted battlefield. She then spied over to Chen, who was coming out of his fetal pose. His skin looked even more gaunt, his appearance more corpse like and gaunt, but his eyeballs had turned red as he sneered.

"That look suits you..." Fangtra mused "So perhaps I should but on my best face..."

"What...?" Fangtra inhaled, slowly, deeply and exhaled a roar as her eyes glowed, and her cannines became fangs. Her fingernails and toenails became black talons, as she her arms and legs began to grow in lenght, fillling out the baggy sections. When it was done, she was a humanoid hyena hybrid, with gold fur with black spots, and a mane that appeared to be fire.

"Yes, yes that face suits you..." Chen said as he stood up. "A horrific gnoll, straight out of someone's nightmares!"

"Brat, I am 'your' worst nightmare. Come and die on my blade!" The two charged their blade wrapped in elemental energy until they clashed. Normally they would've been sent flying, but both now had a superhuman strength that allowed them to stay put, the energy released now as a vortex that shot into the air, until they began to try over powering the other, moving their swords. One moment it was in the air, the other it was pointed on one side of the battle field, then another, then the air and onto the ground again. Each time it touched the ground it send corpses, armor, debris and warriors flying.

"They are evenly matched..." said the Chaka, watching the battle from a holographic screen above her in the thrown room

"Indeed..." Sol replied, mostly not paying attention as he worked away on a holographic keyboard.

"Aren't you going to do something...?"

"For the honor of Raptoor!" Shouted several enemy soldiers who ran in. The circuit covered crystals above them that were producing the hologram, channeled their attention and energy to beams of death that vaporized them one after the other, before returning to their prior task.

"I am doing something..." Said Sol.

"Like what...?"

"Tell me princess...what is a Sword of Power?"

"A sword...holding power..." The two combatants broke out of their lock and began jumping about, dodging or countering each other's swings, and the arcs of energy they produced.

"Cute..." Chen swung his sword down on Fangtress, who blocked and countered by flip kicking him away. "But no. As impressive as they, as powerful as they are, as majestic as they are....Swords of Power are simply conduits."

"Yes, conduits of magical energy..." The two foes swung their blades, generating counteracting waves of energy that hit each other in an explosion

"Even saying that fails to establish a simple truth. All of that energy isn't in the sword."

"Fairly sure the Sword of Raptoor...."

"Had enchantments, ever ponder what was maintaining them...?" The two opponents had stopped and were panting, circling each other. "Every sword of power, has a place of power from which it draws energy, a place where its magic leaks into this world."

"By that logic swords aren't any more different than...simple enchanted items..."

"No, enchanted items are what channels the magic into this reality. The power of these weapons is too great to be used in such a way for normal beings."

"Normal beings...like you...?"

"Well I like that if my spear is damaged, there isn't a threat of a massive continent devastating explosion going off in my face."

"Well, that is....fair...I can't argue with that..."

"So I position to you this question, princess..."

"It's 'queen' now..." she replied annoyed.

"Tell me..." he continued, stepping over her reply "What is a Sword of Power without a Place of Power?" Chaka was about to open her mouth when the weight of the question came pressing down on her mind. Her intellectual muscles began to work to hold up the weight, to find and answer, and when that challenge was met, she rushed over towards him, passing through his holographic keyboard, to his annoyance, and taking a look at what he was doing.

There was a map, a map of the entire continent, showing icons that she was able to discern the legend of. There were places of powers, objects of great magic power, whose effect contributed to the realm's instability. There were icons for his armies, for cities and settlements, castles and stronghold, enemy armies, and so forth, but most importantly, there were icons for his pylons. These were the names for the obelisk like structure of unknown metal, that floated around his pyramid. Several of them were around the pyramid. A few were out at locations of magical energy. But one was moving, but now it stopped over a location she was not familiar with.

"What...did you do...?" Chaka asked. Sol pushed her away with a tendril of energy from his wing.

"The bond between a Sword of Power and its Place of Power...is a link. A link, with the right tools, can be followed."

"To do what...?"

"What do you think a place of power is? You think it's just a location? I can be that, but it can also be an object, a magical item, a reactor, in the end it's simply where the energy is being drawn from. The Sword of Power is simply the control mechanism."

"And now the power will be yours to control...?"

"Mine...?" said Sol "You sound like all of them, singing that same song of the oppressed."

"You're the one making the claim to divinity..."

"I am divine. If the 'world', if its petty mortals refuse to accept that...that fact has not changed. I am power and glory and I exist for a purpose. I came here for a purpose, a purpose for more divine than pathetic dreams of conquests. They think me some conqueror, someone here to claim their lands, and resources. Small minded things all of you. Your magic is a threat that must be dealt with..."

"I still don't understand how magic, that which has kept our hearths warms and made our walls and swords strong...now you say it comes back to bite us...? I believe you, but I do not understand it."

"Come back? Bite you? You make it sound as if it was ever on your side. There are so many powers across the multiverse that can be called 'magic', but the universality they all share is the perclivity for change, for transformation. From weak to powerful, from cold to warm, from dark to light, or perhaps from order to chaos, from light to dark. Change can go either way. You used it as a tool, not much different from twigs and string to make fire, fire to melt iron and fix it into a useable shape and then metal to build constructs to move the earth to please. The difference is this fire can and will burn if left to its own devices, especially this fire. The Flux of the magic your people used, you thought it dealt with because your ancestors seperated it out, into the many artifacts, many trinkets, many places of power." Chaka thought for a moment.

"Your pylons...?"

"They absorb the flux, introduce it to a counter flux, and used the resulting energy to repair the damage to the fabric of reality. The power that destroys, tranformed into bandages for this damaged world. The power they stuffed your brother with is very amsuing..."

"How so...?"

"It is cold..." She raised an eyebrow. "The power I gave Fangtress burns, it is an inferno, it brings light, it bring warmth, it burns away the unclean, and it can burn away everything else. His is the opposite. It brings cold, it brings darkness, it is a supernatural bitterness where the flame of life can only flicker and die, while unlife burns dark, deep decay locked in the perpetuality of a deepest winter. Fools. Your ancestors locked this power away for a reason, and you let it out for what? To build a new world?"

"I don't understand...."

"Indeed, you are like the rest of your people, you see all magic as just 'tools' to be used. You don't understand how it can use you. The nature of this power is to spread and consume, a fire so cold it burns. Now...I will snuff it out." He pressed a button.

Somewhere, elsewhere, on the continent, above old mountains covered in snow, but sourrounded by the hot desert, down came the pylon from the sky. The symbols on its side lit and and the mountain quaked and rumbled as unseen forces ripped it open. What could only be described as the deep blue winds of winter flew up, carrying with them the moaning faces of the dead, absorbed into the based of the pylon, before waves, ripples on reality expanded out from the tip.

Inside the soldiers panicked before the dark pool, the ceiling ripped open, and the pools of spectral energy being drained.

"Impossible...!" shouted one of them "How did he find us here...?!" He turned to the mage in blue and purple robes, a raised collar and a cap, holding a staff. He was on his knees using it to hold himself up, a figure of dealthy pale skin, wintery blue eyes and white hair. "Do something...!" the soldier shouted to him. The wizard simply turned to him, and screamed out a howl as his flesh rotted, and all that was left to fall down was a decrepit skeleton in robes..

Chen swung his blade again, releasing a wave of deathly energy as Fangtress swung her sword, releasing a wave of magic flame. Before their blasts would cancell each other out, but this time was different. The flames overpowered the wintery cold and sent Chen flying back, rolling, tumbling. He picked himsellf up and was ready to go again when a bout of weakness hit him.

"What...is...this...?" Chen asked Sol's face appeared.

"This, is the end..." the hologram uttered.

"Sol, you coward, come out and face me!"

"I have no need to bother with that. You are already bested."

"What are you talking about...?"

"You must feel it, the warmth, the deep cold which powers your sword, which powers you, my pylon is draining it, closing that wound in creation from which you siphon power. Soon, your sword will be powerless and you will be dead..."

"I will not die so easily, I have a world to save!"

"From what? You do nothing for the flux, and the lives of your people are better in the hands of your sister. What you want is power."

"And you don't?!"

"I have power. I am power. Once my duty is done, I will be gone from this world, but you will leave it before me, I think."

"So you mean to execute me...?!"

"Imbecile. You hold literal death in your hand, let it flow through your veins, move your limbs, move your skin, work your eyes ears, and brains...and you think once it is gone you will live?"

"What does that mean?!"

"It means, brother...." said Chaka's voice "The moment you accepted that sword's power your life was tied to it. No power in your sword, no life force for you."

"No!" shouted Chen, trying to step forward "I won't accept them, I can't accept this. This land is mine, it needs me to save, to protect it from-" He stopped. Fangtress was back in her human form, the sword's power glowing in her hair, eyes and under her skin as she had plunged her sword into Chen's heart. "From the mongrels..." Flames erupted from the sword, expanding and swirling around them. When it was done, there was naught flecks of ash left on her sword, and Chen's blade dropped tip first, into the ground.

"And so it is over..." said Sol "Until the next fool troubles things, best left alone." Sol turned to Fangtress. "Our deal is concluded warrior. So it is the blade shall return."

"No..." said Fangtress. Sol was silent. Suddenly the hologram was gone. Fangtress jumped back as the fire from the barrier around her collected together, as ribbon, rivers of energy forming a flaming vortex over where she once was. Its circumference was wide, large, and it began to sprout up wrapping around what looked to be a singularity. The energy around it, the flame it absorbed was released back out carring a sparkling appearance. In the flames were what looked to be constellations, lines of light connecting stars, as matter formed above and around the fire, arcs and bands of golden metal that wrapped around the singularity, forming a chest, arms, and a helm, Sol's helm as metal appeared for his wings.

Sol was now a titanic force, a giant whose lower half was a vortex of flaming energy, standing high above Fangtress. In response the warrior clutched tight her blade and took a fighting stance. Sol just tilted his head.

"You would attempt to slay me with that....? I would make a comment about being 'born of fire' but that would be too on the nose."