An Elemental Party 3 – Fury of the Storm

Sylph had a hard time. Sure, it was self-imposed (nobody forced her to carry an oversized sword) but, nonetheless, it turned out that, even though the white flamelings were weaklings, a dragon was a force to be reckoned with.

The plate made all of her movements sluggishly slow. Well, a speed which the tempest elemental, were she awake and operating normally, would consider slow. Instead of dodging each attack easily, with lots of time to spare to do stupid stuff, Sylph actually needed to concentrate on what she was doing.

Why this was hard for her, Sylph didn’t really know. She was a legendary hero born to fight with the sword a week ago in a small village off the coast. She had always used a sword and plate. Yet she felt hindered.

‘Also, I feel like I am usually smaller, am I big? Have I grown? I hope I have, like, in the chest department. I think the council of Johns likes big boobs. I know they’re all butt men, but maybe they like big bouncy boobas too? Then again, they are all dead now. Wow, that’s a depressing thou-‘ her thoughts were cut as she needed to jump from a descending claw.

The googly eyed beast growled cutely and took a deep breath. Sylph jumped out of the way of the following cone of fire. She was only out of harm's way for a moment. The two flamelings raised their swords of fire and brought them upon the tempest elemental's head.

Sylph answered the attack by following the good old saying that the best defence is a great offence. Grabbing her oversized sword with both hands, she whirled around like a Beyblade shouting “DEMACIAAAAA!”

She didn’t know why, but that seemed like the right thing to say at that moment. That was usually how she operated. Just going with the flow and all that. Was nice. Well, it was until she had to stop spinning because she was getting all kinds of dizzy.

Stumbling through the ashen village plaza, Sylph had no idea where above or below was. Well, once she hit the ground, she had a rough idea.

“Time Out,” Sylph pleaded and raised a hand. The two flamelings and even the mighty dragon surprisingly followed that command. “Wow, I didn’t think you would be this nice,” Sylph blabbered. “Here I thought you would attack me, and then, I would have to jump to my feet and try some heroic retreat, start hiding in houses and stuff, throw pots at you to distract you while I recover and stuff…Actually, that sounds super fun, can we do that? Would be super super. Like ultra ultra, like mega mega, like…”

“Stop being a hyper hyper idiot, Sylph,” came the crackling voice of the most evil Overlady. Wait, no, her voice wasn’t crackling – that came from the fireball heading straight for Sylph’s head.

“WAH!” cried Sylph, somehow, not having seen the flaming projectile until it was about to hit her face. She couldn’t dodge. The world went black.

It smelled like metal where she was. And a bit like flowers. Like, nice flowers. Something like roses? Did roses smell nice? “Do they smell like gummy bears or like cookies?” Sylph wondered. Then she wondered what either of those were. “Dunno but they sound delicious,” she nodded to herself repeatedly, noticing the green legless leotard she was wearing. Very comfortable, and the white gloves she suddenly found her hands in were also fashionable AND comfortable. Like, wearing your own skin comfortable. “That sounds gross actually, like, uncomfortably gross…Death is surprisingly nice though. Wonder if they have a sex dungeon?”

“Get out of that tin-can,” came Salamander’s voice from somewhere. Then her afterlife was shaken, rattled like hundreds of pieces of metal being violently kicked. Sylph found herself being thrown around inside the not all that vast darkness, before it came to an abrupt halt, and Sylph emerged from her steel sarcophagus.

Everything seemed big. Like really big. Her ‘afterlife’ actually had been her former armour, Sylph realized. Especially big were the two mounds of red in front of her however, hidden only by a bit of fire. “Those are some big bongos,” she blurted out before raising her head to find the most mean Overlady staring down at her.

Before Salamander could say anything, Sylph had to get some complaints out of the way. One, a very important one, to be exact. “YOU SHRUNK ME!” she cried out while wildly gesturing. “I don’t know why you would cast a fireball of shrinking – or why you even have that spell, thought you more of a burner – but that is super rude. I was small before, I wanted to grow, now I am tiny.”

Salamander’s eyebrows pulled together. “Your head is just empty, isn’t it?” she asked. “Like, just nothing is in there.”

“I think I have a brain,” Sylph defended herself.

“No, you don’t. You are an air elemental; you don’t have a brain,” came the dry answer.

Didn’t her squire say something similar on their travels? Well, if it was true, all Sylph would have to do is to concentrate a bit and surely something would happen. Salamander was suddenly gripped by a powerful wind and catapulted back several metres.

“AHAHA!” Sylph laughed, stemming her hands into her hips in a victorious pose. “You did the villain mistake and told me what my greatest power is. Now, prepare to be vanquished!”

“Was not aware you knew big words like that,” Salamander, landing on her feet just fine, said. Then the most vile Overlady turned to Sylph’s squire.

“Do the thing, Gnome,” she asked, surprisingly nicely.

“Wait, what?” Sylph interjected after Gnome nodded. “You have consp…conspiret…co-sp….Uhh, such a hard word…YOU HAVE BETRAYED ME, GNOME?! That is so mean, so Gmean!” The stone elemental did look sorry, but, whatever she was doing wasn’t stopping.

Salamander conjured a fireball that grew and grew and grew. Eventually it was the size of a house; then she threw it. Sylph was already on the move, soaring through the air with speed that felt just about right. It was like she had awakened to her true power.

Didn’t matter, though. Salamander was faster. Like, so fast that Sylph couldn’t even see her until the most powerful Overlady was already punching her. Sylph hit the ashen ground once more, feeling what little buffer the layers of ash on the ground provided scatter away under the impact.

But being stubborn was one of the things she prided herself on, and so she was instantly on the move again. She felt electricity rushing through her body, saw her skin glow slightly blueish and then charged off with twice her usual speed.

However, not even that was enough to escape Salamander, who brought her foot down and nailed Sylph to the ground. “So, fun fact. We have the base level of our powers in these dreams, but, if we want to, we can raise them through the roof, too, sister,” the most cheating Overlady smirked, “and right now I am at least five times more powerful than usual; you don’t stand a chance.”

“Dream, our powers, sister?” Sylph asked, “Whaaaaa?”

Salamander groaned and massaged her temples with closed eyes. “I really don’t know if you are stupid, wilfully ignorant, honestly not aware or all of the above. Most likely the last,” spoke the most evil, super sexy Overlady.

Sylph had no care for being insulted. However, during Salamander’s sudden headache, the heroine managed to slip out from under the villain’s feet! Just because being pinned down by a bigger woman was pretty sexy did not mean she would forget her duty to the coastal cities! “Totally planned!” she announced, “Like, super planned, a perfect feint. A most wise tactic! And now I will ste- ehem, borrow, your attack!”

Raising her hands above her head, Sylph channelled power into a big ball of electricity. It grew slowly, but surely. It would reach the size of the one Salamander had used. In, like, two minutes, maybe three…probably five. ‘Well, considering that the most mean Overlady beat me in just about one…nah, it’ll be fine…but if I had a green dinosaur to distract her for me, that would be great.’

Then Sylph saw Salamander appear in front of her again and was promptly slapped out of the air by a red hand. She crashed once more, shook her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears and stared at the blaze elemental, hovering in the air above.

“That was super mean!” Sylph complained. “We are supposed to fight using our big attacks!”

“I don’t give a fuck, Sylph, this is punitive action against you being an annoying invader in my power fantasies!” answered the most confusing Overlady. “And I am halfway sure that you STILL have more fun doing this than me, despite me doing the slapping around here.” Well, Sylph was wearing a big stupid grin on her face, so that was a fair assumption. Lost in thought, Salamander rubbed her chin. Then she snapped her fingers. “I have an idea. As I am basically the god of this realm right now, here is a gift.”

In front of Sylph spawned a beautiful thing. It was of the red colour only a gemstone could possess and shaped like a very odd bear, with stubby arms and legs. Only the head was somewhat accurate, but even there the proportions were changed to be more cute than accurate. It was about the size of herself and Sylph felt her heart skip a beat when she looked upon this, surely delicious, creature.

“Would you agree to fuck off if I gave you this?” Salamander asked. Sylph felt conflicted. On one hand, her mission as a legendary hero kind of made it immoral to make a deal with the most alluring Overlady, on the other, Sylph’s mouth was watering and this thing just looked cute and sweet and just to bite into.

“Done deal!” Sylph jumped forwards to claim her prize. The gummy bear melted before she got there. Sylph landed in a sticky puddle of gelatine and ash.

“SALAMANDER!” Gnome stepped up, “That was not nice!”

“Yeah, well, I think she deserves it!” Salamander countered, “You and Aclysia, always stepping in when things get out of bounds. Well SORRY, but she clearly needs some curtailing.”

“Maybe, but that was still out of bounds, you know how important gummy bears are to her!”

“Now listen here…”

Sylph didn’t follow the rest of the discussion. A high-pitched tone, like a whistle or a heavy object cutting through air, pressured down on her ear drums with increasing intensity, drowning out the voices. She looked at the puddle her hands had sunken into, raised one of them, only to see the completely inedible mess now below her.

She gritted her teeth, and the tone disappeared. Replaced by terrible silence. It wasn’t that Gnome or Salamander had stopped their argument, but the words they spoke weren’t carried by the air anymore. Everything around Sylph was perfectly still, there wasn’t even a bit of movement in the air.

“Silly Sally,” Sylph finally said, the only words that cut the alien lack of sound. Sylph stood up, and her form changed as she did. There was something raging inside, something that her smaller form couldn’t hope to contain. “Stupid, mean Sally.”

The ash at Sylph’s feet started to melt in peculiar, forked patterns. Small arcs of electricity jumped from her soles to the ground and then crackled up her body. More and more of these arcs appeared, melting inside electric discharges that jumped several metres around. The power manifesting inside her couldn’t be held within her tiny frame; it jumped between her fingers when she looked at them. Her skin glowed from within, the air crackled under the overflowing energy.

Sylph set her sight on Salamander, who was staring at her, mouth wide agape. She was trying to say something, two times two syllables, but the aura of silence encapsulated everything still. No word ever reached Sylph.

Then she stormed forwards. It was Salamander who found herself at the receiving end of an opponent so fast that she couldn’t follow her. Behind herself, Sylph could feel the air close with an immense force. Were it not for her keeping the world quiet, the loud sound of thunder would roll over the village right now.

Salamander moved like she was encapsulated in some sort of gelatine. The blaze elemental tried to raise her hand. Sylph let her, then she grabbed it like she was picking up a twig in the front lawn. There was no time for reaction for her older sister. The forked Lichtenberg figures spread over Salamander’s arm within a fraction of a second. If she had time for it, she would have cried out in pain. Sylph gave her no such time. She felt nothing right now but retribution, and so she spun once in the air and let go of Salamander’s arm.

The impact caused a shockwave that ripped apart the buildings nearby. Creaking first and then being carried off in singular parts, the wood and stone buildings simply scattered in the silent winds. Sylph forced the dust and ash to settle with a mere wave of her hand. Then she landed above Salamander. Raising her hand, a bolt of lightning formed in her hand; she held it like a throwing spear. Sylph pulled back her arm.

Then she was ripped to the side by several dozen kilos of Gnome tackling her and forcing her to the ground. Sound returned to the world as Sylph was suddenly subject to the tasty attack of having a gummy bear forced into her face. The anger faded and Sylph’s consciousness did as well.