The Maker gave you what you need to save him yourself. Use it! Djurle told you that you didn't hurt anyone who lived in Erith, and if you didn't do it then, you won't do it now!

Zebulon’s choked attempt at a breath reminded Tecovis of that day…

I can't!

“I'm sorry, Lieutenant. You've done a lot for my people. You have heart. But unfortunately, you're too much trouble. And as the living ancestors say, the only good human is a dead one."

You must! Nobody else can save him now! Djurle's not coming, it has to be YOU!

A spike of ice as long as a full fledged spear began to form in the open hand of the grixovite, Zeb's eyes went wide and he redoubled his efforts to escape.

“ZEB!!!”

Remember how your power came! Bring it back out now, before he dies!

Her voice grated against Tecovis's ears. “Don't worry, I'll make sure it's quick. You at least deserve that much.”

A warmth of anger bloomed in his chest.

Gripping his heart.

Dulling his pain.

I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Mama… I'm sorry… I have to… I can't... I can't let him die too…

Zebulon continued to struggle, unable to accept defeat, he kicked at the grixovite. The ice itself jumped upwards and froze both his legs together before he could hit her, leaving him dangling completely helpless.

Pain shot through his body as the vandals struck him to the ground from behind.

Tecovis strained and heaved against his frozen tomb. He could feel his solidified gambeson thawing.

He felt something crack in his heart as he saw his mother's corpse, lifeless and limp in the bandit's grasp.

An audible crack reverberated through the ice. The grixovite stopped as she turned to face the noise.

Mama!? MAMA!!!

Tecovis unleashed a full throated roar as he pressed against the ice with all of his might. 

Smoke, which reeked of burning flesh, attacked his lungs as the building the bandits had claimed now lay in tatters.

It continued to crack before shattering into pieces, releasing him from his chilled bonds.

He would make them pay.

“Well, well. I guess this just got interesting.”

He would make them ALL pay for what they did to his home.

Zeb pried himself away from her frosty grasp and collapsed to the ground several feet below, his breathing labored from the drop. She ignored him, focusing on Tecovis.

He would make them pay if it was the last thing he did...

“You've got my attention now, human. You'd best hope your little show is more than just a party trick.”

If it was the only thing he did...

Her hand pointed at the dripping guardsman, and a trail of ice spikes shot from the ground towards him.

His rage was immeasurable...

The air spat at the sudden wave of heat that radiated from Tecovis, the ice unable to reach him as it turned to steam instantly.

His fury a blaze that would not be stopped...

The grixovite woman began to tremble. 

“That's not... What are you?”

Every single one of them…

The now dry Tecovis looked at the fearful grixovite as she tried to step away from him. Zeb could do nothing more than stare with wonder from the ground as he continued to recover. 

Would face…

Flames subsumed his fingers, wreathed his palms, and trailed up his forearms. The gambeson under his armor smoked. His power, a raging inferno he'd thought he'd snuffed with years of discipline, finally on display for all to see after nine long years.

His…

In response to the grixovite, from deep, deep within him, Tecovis was able to growl only a single word.

“...Wrath.”

Tecovis drew from the storm within, blasting the grixovite's support from beneath her with a thunderous cacophony of sizzling and splintering.

A ramp appeared beneath her that redirected her momentum towards the entrance to the cavern and she stumbled into a sprint.

You think you can get away from me that easily!?

He raised his palm towards it and the entire opening erupted into a wall of flame. He somehow knew she was trying to snuff it and tripled the flame's strength.

"Not a chance," said Tecovis as the grixovite slid to a stop.

She whipped around to face him as his hand dropped to his side. The light of the flames reflected off his lamellar, causing the ground around him to be highlighted with flickering waves. The ground exploded beneath him as Tecovis charged towards her, but even now her speed was nothing to snuff at as she leaped to the side.

Blast it all!

Tecovis's vocal chords tore in his fury as he hurtled balls of fire toward his enemy, melting each ice wall the grixovite could summon as fast as they appeared.

When defense failed, she threw every attack she had at him. Every ice chunk evaporating as the fury pouring out of him was so far beyond anything she could muster. He pressed her back into the center of the room. The flames nearly blotting out the beams of sunlight coming from the damaged roof as they streaked across their faces in the mad frenzy.

A sudden blast of steam tossed him to his back. Above, the grixovite pillared herself to the crack in the cavern roof.

Nobody leaves until I'm done with you!

He focussed his mind towards the root system that covered the ceiling, instantly engulfing the whole thing in flames as he simultaneously destroyed the pillar with a powerful heatwave.  The falling ice boulders morphed into piles of snow and the grixovite landed with a fwump while Tecovis stood back to his feet.

The sweltering heat that now oppressed the cavern would have broken other men. He'd seen them collapse under less during the worst of summers. But in this moment, it invigorated him. He didn't just feel good. He felt great. Better than he had in nine years. He almost smiled as he heard ice throughout the cave cracking from thermal shock. Her eyes darted back to the ceiling, and he sent a flaming streak straight towards her head, only for it to miss off to one side as she darted towards Slide and Pan.

His voice cracked as he shouted, "You stay away from them!" and charged after her, trying to engulf her with pillars of fire. He screamed she yanked Pan's shield from the ground and blocked his blazing fist. The grixovite tried to bash him with its rim, but he easily tore it aside and attacked her with riotous fury. She was slowing down. He could see it in her eyes. The desperation. The terror.

It made him sloppy.

She ducked under one of his strikes and used his own momentum against him, throwing him to the ground, and knocking the wind clean out of his chest.

She tried to dive onto him, but he ignited the air between them with scorching energy, blasting the grixovite away and back into the center of the room.

Tecovis staggered to his feet as the grixovite struggled to do the same. The crackling of the ice and roots filled his ears, a veritable bonfire of change and destruction.

All of your lies!

The smoke coming from his gambeson nearly obstructed his vision.

All of your deceit!

When he caught his breath, he shook himself off and stalked towards the grixovite.

For what!?

He focused his power into his hands, directing its shape into claws, not unlike the metal claws one of the bandits of Erith had used on him. 

For a foreign war fought by people who have nothing to do with us! It ends no-

"LOOK OUT!"

Tecovis twisted to Slide as he shouted, then tracked his gaze to the-

WHAM!!

Pain...

Tecovis was crushed. Skewered beneath the tangled mass of ice-covered roots that had fallen from the ceiling. He felt wood rubbing against the bone of his thigh, and freezing chills at the joint of his shoulder and in his neck.

"BOSSMAN!"

He barely heard the voice through his deafening agony. It was nearly unbearable, even by the standards of endurance Thruf had beaten into him.

But this wasn't the first time he'd been impaled.

And I will endure...

He thought of the wound that gave him the scar on his left side. He'd been stabbed from behind by a spear while he was tearing through the bandits in Erith. He remembered incinerating it while it was still in his torso and continuing to fight on. How had he done that? Djurle could heal with stone, so maybe he could-

"TECO!"

The voice called him back to the moment. He silently screamed as he pulled himself away from the roots and felt his boiling blood oozing into the fabric of his armor. He closed his eyes. Slowed his breathing... Remembering... Remembering the feelings that he felt when the wounds closed all those years ago. Recreating in his mind the heat being drawn in from the environment and into the wounds themselves. As he did, the temperature of the room dropped, and his flesh crawled, knitting itself back together like a master weaver sewing an old curtain. He felt around the pierce sites and found them as smooth as they'd ever been. His other injuries faded too, all the scrapes, scratches, and bruises that plagued him from the past two days had vanished like he'd had months of recovery in a single passing moment. 

He heard the grixovite begin to celebrate. "I... I did it... hehe... I survived... I-"

He reached forward and grasped one of the roots, hoisting himself to his feet before withering it into ash in mere seconds.

He glared at the grixovite with every ounce of hate in his soul. She recoiled from where she was hunched, her eyes were sunken in and she was gasping desperately for air.

"Please... have mercy, Ancestor..."

In that moment, he saw the leader of the bandits back in Erith. Tecovis had chased him all across the town as he had gone on his rampage, and when he'd been caught, the he'd said the same thing, word for word.

"Mercy!? MERCY!?"

His voice was perfectly clear, no trace of the damage that should have been there remained.

"You expect me to show you mercy after all of this!? After forcing countless hands into slavery!?"

Past became present as he stormed towards his enemy, his hands reigniting with the fury of the Maker.

"NO!" His shout caused her to flinch. 

The grixovite threw a weak right jab as he got close. He caught her by the wrist and watched her scream, writhing in agony as he seared her flesh. She tried pitifuly to tear herself from his grip, but every bit of strength she had shown previously had dissipated while he felt fresher than fruit still on its tree.

Then all at once, he saw her countenance change.

She closed her sunken eyes and her breathing steadied, even with her arm still melting like wax beneath his fingers

She gave up.

Tecovis raised his other hand, as he had in Erith, and prepared to put this grixovite out of her misery once and for-

"TECO! WAIT!"

Slide's voice ripped Tecovis from his trance. His gaze snapped over to him, the radiant heat emanating from Tecovis slowly melting his comrade from the wall. Slide had managed to free an arm and had it outstretched towards Tecovis. His eyes practically pleading to him.

"Don't do it, Teco!"

Rage...

"And why shouldn't I!? She killed five guards that we know of and injured a dozen more, not even considering CIVILIANS! She just tried to kill US! Don't you see she's too dangerous to be left alive!?"

"You're the one who said we had to do this right! Does this look right to you!? Look at her! LOOK AT HER TECO!!!"

Heartbreak...

Tecovis turned to the grixovite, once known to him as Chamile Fern. From her knees, she looked at Slide with a confused and hollow gaze, still wincing under Tecovis's shaking, flaming grasp. Her hair, which was now clearly to his eye dyed red, was damp with sweat and ratty from the fighting, and her blue eyes filled with tears that dripped down her face and evaporated. The fur trim of her leather armor was withered to ash, and the leather itself smoked as much as his gambeson was, especially at the wrist. She turned back to look at Tecovis. For a brief moment, a glimmer of regret crossed her gaze.

Tears...

"She should be brought to justice! Does that look like justice to you!? DOES IT!?"

Tecovis stared at the ukitu. As he did, a familiar smoke came to his nostrils. The same smoke he smelled the day his home burned to the ground.

The smoke of burning flesh.

Oh no...

Tecovis recoiled, releasing her involuntarily as he backed away. The grixovite, realizing she was free, grabbed her injured arm and a thin layer of frost quickly formed over the burnt flesh. She otherwise didn't move from her place.

No... no, no...

His lungs couldn't get enough air.

Ohnononono...

His heart pounded against his ribs.

What did I do?

His hands shook violently, and the flames of his hands and around the room simultaneously sputtered out and extinguished.

I'm sorry Mama...

A wave of cool came over him as the air tried to regulate itself, a feeling that only exacerbated his self-induced horror.

I...

He fell backward onto the ground.

I didn't want to...

The sound of ice shattering came from the far end of the room and the heavily sweating, eminite-empowered Zebulon slowly rose from the wall he had crawled towards during the battle of monsters. His eyes were impossibly wide, and his mouth was agape as he clutched his chest. Pan stared in much the same way as he too was half-thawed.

"I..."

Tecovis's eyes bulged at his bare, fully healed hands, unharmed by the flames that mere seconds ago consumed them. 

"I didn't mean to..."

His voice cracked.

"Not again... Maker, what did I do!?"

"Bossman!" Slide shouted, the ice creaking as he tried to pull himself free.

Zeb noticed Slide's attempt and limped over to the grixovite, grabbing his bronze sword as he went. He put the blade to her throat as he arrived beside her.

"Free them."

There was no kindness in his deep voice. Only a simple, flat command.

The grixovite turned to face the imposing Lieutenant. After a few seconds, the ice that bound the other seven guardsmen shifted into piles of snow. Rox and Ezkutu crawled out from beneath their piles and coughed as the heated air entered their lungs. The three members of Charm squad all stared from their various snow piles, and Pan made almost no effort to move as he, too, simply stared at Tecovis.

From behind Tecovis came the sound of bare feet on stone.

"All of them," said Djurle Iranu.

Djurle was damp from head to toe, his normally gray hair was muddy and clumpy, and his leather vest stuck to his stony torso like cold grease in an old pan. The few parts of bare skin that were exposed had burn marks weaving themselves in wild, jagged, wiry patterns. 

The grixovite head fell. Then what was left of the ice cages did the same as the guardsmen's, revealing the internal root structure that held them all together had plenty of space to walk through. Dozens of ukitu of all kinds stepped out of the remains of their prisons, all of them also staring at Tecovis.

Azalea emerged from hers and took a few extra steps towards him.

"Ancestor...?"

The word slashed at his core like a butcher's knife.

He tried to scoot away from her. She stopped her approach, raising her hands towards him like he was a rabid animal. His heartbeat drummed in his ears, and his vision began to swim.

"Bossman?" Slide approached from the other side, completely disarmed. He cautiously walked next to the terrified Spirit of Fire and kneeled down next to him where he sat.

"Slide... Slide, I... I-I didn't... I never...I swear I... I...

Tecovis grabbed hold of Slide, practically clawing himself further into an embrace than was physically possible. 

"It's okay, bossman," he whispered, his own voice wavering. "We're here... We're here..."

Tecovis's breath finally caught in his throat, and pain which had been nine years buried returned to choke him out as tears eclipsed his vision.

And Tecovis screamed.

And he screamed.

And he screamed....

Your story continues... Find it in 'The Spirit of Fire Part 2; Module B {yet to be written}