Beneath the Surface

The trees catch fire, burning rapidly. A sound of scurrying drifts over from the flames, and a quick flash of movement catches their eyes. Whatever was there had fled further in.

"Right, now we go." Ician pauses. "Wait, give it a moment."

The trees on fire collapse to the ground.

"Okay, now we go in." He frowns. "The only problem is that there might be an ambush anywhere in there. It might be wiser to burn the whole place to the ground first, instead of moving forward." He turns to Divine and Ruby. "What do you think?"

"I can burn it down. It'll be fun~" She purred

Ician gestures to the forest. "Then burn away. But be careful; we could get attacked at any moment. Especially when we're not paying attention."

She nods and fire erupts all over the forest as she giggles happily.

"Good, good." Ician murmurs. "Now all we need to do is-"

All of a sudden, a purple beam of arcane energy shoots out from between two still-untouched trees, heading directly towards Ruby's torso with blinding speed.

She side-steps it, cocking her head as she stares into the burning forest.

Another huge flurry of beams lance out from the forest, peppering the area with dangerous magic beams.

Ician steps in front of Ruby, taking as many of the attacks as he could on his enchanted armour. "We can't take them out from here. Divine, could you go in and take care of them? You're the fastest among us. Just..." He gulps. "Don't get burnt."

((Got to go now. So sorry. See you!))

Divine nods silently and moves into the forest, the sounds of screaming filling the air as she moves through the burning trees with frightening ease, cutting down changelings.

[Bye~]

Storm had no time to dodge so at the last second he raises a condensed shield of fire in front of him. It's not enough to stop the beam just weaken it a bit. The force of the ice beam hitting his shield sends Storm flying. He hits a wall and his shield breaks, allowing the bream to freeze his left rear leg. he lands on the floor with a thud.

It takes him a few seconds to struggle back to his hooves, when he finally raises his head to look at the changeling commander he's smiling. "That's my fire." He says slowly. His horn lights up and he reaches out to the fire still burning on the changeling's chest and cheek. He increases the temperature of the fire suddenly and forces it to twist like a tornado. He doesn't yet have full control so the flames can't heat up to a very high temperature just yet, but they are increasing.

As Divine moves through the woods, cutting down changelings, the blade of a sharp magic blade grazes her hind leg.

---

The changeling commander grits her teeth as the fire rages on her. "Nice... nice tactic. But it's too little... too late..."

She whistles again. "Read-AY! Set!"

Storm keeps his manic grin. His eyes shift to the wall of fire and the changelings that stand beyond it. He increases the heat of the flames. To anyone that didn't know him it would look like he was just strengthening the shield, the grin on his face suggested something a little different however. Once the flames were hot enough to to melt a soft metal Storm pushed. At his command the wall moved quickly back towards the changelings.

The wall moved back, encasing the front line of changelings in a terrifying inferno. The others dart back as fast as they can, some succumbing quickly to the flames.

The changeling commander, however, does not flinch. She merely smiles a grotesque smile, with the fire spreading over her face. "FIRE!"

From a platform one hundred metres away from Storm's wall, another beam of ice lances out, but this time it fires towards and through the wall of fire, melting into a stream of water as it heads towards the two of them like a high-pressure jet.

The jet slams into Storms side lifting him off his hooves and smashing his body into a wall. Three loud cracks sound as he impacts the wall as three of his ribs break, numerous small cuts open up on his body where partially melted ice shards hit him. Storm screams the pain fuelling his anger. The flames intensify in heat slowing their disappearance. When the jet stops he lands on the floor only about half of his body is on fire making him that much weaker, the intensity of the fire he'd already conjured halves.

He coughs a few times blood the only thing that leaves his mouth. It takes him much longer to get up this time and when he does he staggers a little from exhaustion leaning against the wall to hold himself up. The pain jolts a small amount of his consciousness allowing him briefly to return to sanity. "How fitting two monsters killing each other. I warn you changeling I don't know who you are or why you do this but if you don't stop you will die. There is no escape." Storm says in an emotionless voice his expression so serious it would e difficult to ignore him. As quickly as it came his sanity left him. Storm throws a fireball at the platform, uncertain and perhaps uncaring whether it did any damage or even found it's mark. He launched a stream of fireballs at Theria, after the tenth he stopped, slumping as he panted.

The fireball loses power as it moves over the hundred metres between Storm and the platform, and the impact is absorbed by a shield spell over at the platform.

In the meantime, the jet of water hits the changeling commander, washing over her chest and face and extinguishing the flames, but also carrying her forward and smashing her against the ground. She staggers to her feet and stumbles forward, a semi-manic grin on her face.

Her horn flashes and she catches all the fireballs on a flickering shield. She laughs hollowly. "Escape... there will never be an escape... not... for me..."

With that, she collapses to the floor, not quite yet unconscious but slowly fading into it. "But from one monster to another... I salute your efforts."

She draws a ragged breath, lifts her head, and shouts, "Magic artillery! Fire... fire at will!"

Griff does not move from his spot in the sand. He remains entirely hidden, waiting for the fire to spread out and changelings to hop at the shield mages so he can slice them up by surprise.

No changelings appear from the forest, but soon after the first lances of magic pulses, originating from the forest, strike against the prepared shields, dissipating against it harmlessly. However, the barrage does not lessen, more and more shots pouring into the shields with the mages struggling to keep the shields intact.

Griff stays still, hoping the shield mages know how to dodge in case their shields get broken.

Sure enough, the flurry of shots soon becomes too much for the shield mages to bear. They dive to the ground away from the forest, just as their shields disintegrate in the face of the fire. Magic blasts fly over their heads as they flatten themselves against the ground.

"Where's the friggin fire...." Griff silently says, hoping the mages don't get hit. "Cmon, fire, spread out... let them burn..."

A shot grazes the thigh of one of the mages, and another shoots straight past the other's flank.

All of a sudden, the roar of a blazing inferno interrupts the barrage, and the battlefield falls silent, no sign of the changelings responsible other than a flicker of movement in the forest, then that, too, was concealed in the flames.

Griff slowly sneaked to the mages "You guys alright?" he asks silently, hoping they heard him.

"Yes... sir." The one with the slightly injured leg grunts. "Nothing too bad,"

"We've had... worse," says the other as he gets to his feet. "New orders, sir?"

"We have our orders." Griff said. "Don't let anyone come through. Nobody attempted to get past us yet. I guess we could just wait it out for a bit."

"If you insist, sir." The mages stand to attention. "Still... it's strange, isn't it? Commander Ician said that there would be hordes of them. This isn't anything at all."

"Yeah.. that is weird..." Griff agrees as he transforms back into pony form to cast pain-killing spell on all three of them. "For now, let's just continue waiting until further orders from the commander. Objections?"