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 unfortunatly 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!

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

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 pushed against his frozen tomb. He could feel his solidified gambeson start to thaw.

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 scream as he pushed 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 wreathed his fingers, subsumed 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 power within and blasted the grixovite's support from beneath her with a thunderous cacophony of sizzling and shattering. 

She broke her fall with ramp that redirected her towards the entrance to the cavern.

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 could feel her trying to snuff it, and trippled the flames 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 ecxploded beneath him as Tecovis leapt towards her, but even now her speed was nothing to snuff at as she leapt to the side.

Blast it all!

Tecovis screamed as he hurtled balls of fire towards his enemy, melting each ice wall the grixovite could summon as fast as they appeared.

When defence failed she threw every attack she had at him, but as the power continually pouring out of him was so far beyond anything she could muster, she instead tried to pillar to the crack in the cavern roof.

Nobody leaves until I'm done with you!

He focussed his mind towards the root system which covered the ceiling, instantly engulfing the whole thing in flames and he simultaneously destroyed the pillar with a powerful heatwave. The grixovite quickly morphed the falling ice boulders into piles of snow and landed with a fwump.

The radiant heat 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 beginning to crack 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.

He shouted, "You stay away from them!" and charged after her, trying to get her off course by creating pillars of fire in her path. He screamed as she quickly grabbed Pan's shield from the ground and  locked his blazing fist. The grixovite tried to bash him with it's 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. He had her on the ropes. It made him sloppy. She ducked under one of his strikes and threw him to the ground with his own momentum, 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. The smoke coming from his gambeson nearly obstructed his vision. When he caught his breath, he shook himself off and approached the grixovite. He focussed his power into his hands, directing it's shape into claws, not unlike the metal claws the bandits of Erith had once used on him. 

All of your lies! All of your deceit! For what!? 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 falling debris over his head.

WHAM!!

Tecovis was crushed and skewered beneath the tangled mass of roots that had fallen from the ceiling. He felt at least three separate points where he'd been impaled in the soft spots between his armor.

"BOSSMAN!"

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

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

He thought to 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 contuing 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 the blood ooze from the injuries and into the fabric of his armor. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, choosing to try and remember the feelings that he felt when the wounds closed all those years ago. He recreated in his mind the heat being drawn in from the environment, and into the wounds themselves. As he did, the temperature pf the room dropped amd his flesh crawled, knitting itself back together like a master weaver sewing an old curtain. He felt around the pierce sites and found them smooth as they'd ever been. His other injuries from the previous night had faded too, and all the soreness that plagued him from the past two days had vanished with them.

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 all the hate he could muster. 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, the grixovite reminded him of 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 leader said the same thing, word for word.

"Mercy!? MERCY!?"

"You expect me to show you mercy after all of this!? After you betray this city!? After you kidnap countless innocents!?"

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

"NO!"

The grixovite weakly struck at his face as he got close. He caught her by the wrist, and watched her writhe in agony as he seared her flesh. After a moment more of trying feebly to escape, he saw her countenance change. She gave up. Her struggling stopped and she closed her eyes. Tecovis raised his other hand and prepared to put this grixovite out of her misery once and for-

"TECO! WAIT!"

Slide's voice ripped Tecovis from his trance, though his fury still burned bright as his hands. 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 were practically pleading to him.

"Don't do it Teco!"

Pain...

"And why shouldn't I!? She killed five guards 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!? She surrendered! 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 hollowed gaze, in pain from Tecovis's shakey, flaming grasp. Her hair that was clearly dyed red was damp with sweat and ratty from the fighting, her blue eyes filled with tears that dripped down her face, the fur trim of her leather armor was whithered to ash, and the leather itself smoked from the heat, 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.

Tecovis recoiled when he smelled it, letting her go involuntarily as he backed away. His hands shook violently, the flames of his hands and around the room simultaneously sputtered out and extinguished. A wave of cool came over him as the air tried to regulate itself, a feeling that only exacerbated his self induced horror. He began to hyperventilate and fell backwards onto the ground.

Oh no. Ohnononono... what did I do?

The grixovite grabbed her injured arm as she realized she was free and a thin layer of frost quickly formed over the burnt flesh. She otherwise didn't move from her place. With his the ice covering his feet weakend by the heat, the heavily sweating, eminite empowered Zebulon strained against it until it shattered, then slowly rose from the wall he had crawled towards to avoid the battle of monsters. His eyes were impossibly wide and his mouth was agape as he clutched his injured ribs. Pan stared in much the same way as he too was half thawed.

"What did I do...?"

Tecovis shook as he stared at his hands, unharmed by the flames that mere seconds ago consumed them.

"Not again..."

His voice cracked.

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

"Bossman!" Slide shouted, the ice cracking 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 weakly 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 fresh air entered their lungs. The three members of Charm squad all came out from their various bonds, and Pan made almost no effort to move as he was freed, simply staring 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, his leather vest stuck to his stoney 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, wirey patterns. 

The grixovite closed her eyes in defeat as he made his presence known. Then what was left of the ice cages did the same as the first, 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. She opened her mouth and whispered to him, "Ancestor...?"

The word stabbed at Tecovis and he tried to scoot away from her. She stopped her approach and raised her hands towards him like he was a cornered animal that had hissed. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He could feel himself getting light headed.

"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.

After hesitating in his panicked state, Tecovis quickly grabbed hold of Slide, practically clawing himself further into the embrace than was physically possible. 

"It's okay bossman. We're here. We're here."

Tecovis's breath finally caught in his throat, pain which had been nine years buried returned to choke him out, memories of the destruction of Erith flooded his mind 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}