Chapter 58: Snakes In The Burning Grass III
Spreading out her legs and arms Nizael put herself in her most flexible stance as it fluttered into action once more.
Slamming onto the ground, it dug its fingers under the earth and pulled itself forward in a flurry of flames.
Unlike when Nizael moved, the Avatar's flames caused no damage or change to its surroundings. Even though its flames practically licked the ground and the inconsistent grass caught fire, they did not burn.
The Avatar wielded flames that burned only what they wished to, and the grass was not facing its wrath.
Sending forth its flame, it attempted to engulf Nizael in them.
In response to its attack, Nizael slid back, nearly dodging the attack before bursting forward — striking its leg with her metal sticks causing an occurrence that anyone other than Nizael would have seen as strange.
Instead of acting like flesh typically does, the area on its leg that her stick had struck was dented in as if it was a large piece of metal.
Rather than being surprised, she was instead, annoyed. Clicking her tongue at the dent in its leg she quickly jumped into the air dodging the swing of its arm before covering her hand in white light, grasping at the Avatar's burning fur coat and pulling herself into the air.
The Avatar swerved its head in every direction as it lost sight of Nizael's small figure. Raising its head to the sky, it caught sight of her as she was cocking her arms back; a mass of white light forming into a large blade of white flames covering her sticks.
In quick response to her flames, the Avatar forced arms made of its brilliant flames from its back, sending them up to her at incredible speeds.
Launching her arms forward in a flurry of speed matching that, no, even faster than the speed of the Avatar's multitude of limbs; as the white flame blades were sent unto it.
Not even a moment after Nizael sent forth her blades and the Avatar launched its fists, the two collided causing an explosion that radiated and shook the TIOT followed by a burst of smoke. The blast caused the Avatar to be slammed into the ground, sinking into it as it created a large crater — while Nizael was launched further up, slamming her back into the top of the TIOT, causing a resounding bang.
Falling from the ceiling, Nizael slammed into the ground, luckily she was able to somewhat safely land.
Even though she was somewhat unharmed, Nizael could feel something had been dislocated along with the blood that was dribbling down her forehead; quickly popping her shoulder back into place, she paid no mind to the blood.
Her vision was currently obscured due to smoke that had resulted from the previous clash, so she decided to focus on her people's most powerful sense, her hearing.
As her ears slightly twitched, she couldn't hear a single grunt, nor a cry of pain, but those weren't necessary — she could tell from the mere smell of burnt flesh that entered her nose that she had caused the beastly Avatar some damage; though that damage would not stop their battle.
Grrrr! — With a low and dense growl penetrating her ears, Nizael attempted to move to avoid it, unfortunately though, its fists and arms were quite a few times larger than the General.
Seeing no way to block the attack, Nizael raised her sticks in front of her and formed a wall of white light in front of her as she braced herself.
She was unable to see the Avatar through the smoke so, she had no way to know that right after slamming an arm into the wall of light, another, bloodied, arm, would come from her unguarded side and slam into her — sending her flying across the now barren field of grass.
While she flew, she began to twist and turn, trying to balance herself. Once she regained balance, Nizael surrounded herself in a bubble of white light as she slammed into the wall of the TIOT, denting and slightly melting it in the process.
Falling onto her feet her bubble immediately disappeared after which she spat on the ground, a fierce glare in her eyes as she wiped her mouth.
Fvoom... — A strange noise came from the TIOTs, looking around, she could see that with each second the smoke was becoming less and less dense-
Wragh! — With a sudden twitch of her ears, Nizael rolled to the side with haste as a large piece of flaming rock crashed into where she was just standing.
Even though it was not all gone and out of the surroundings, she could now make out where the Avatar was standing within the smoke, and it seemed to be missing some rather important parts.
She could make out half of its legs having been either disemboweled or torn apart as flesh hung off them, bringing back to her mind the bloody limb which had previously slammed into her.
It lurched forward and made great distance as it quickly made its way in front of Nizael, it attempted to snatch her up, but she was going to let it do so.
She might have gotten older and been having an unpleasant time dealing with this creature but she remained as slippery as she was in the past.
As the Avatar's large hands attempted to lock themselves around her, Nizael ducked, twisted, and slid under its fingers and fist as she freed herself from its encirclement — jumping up she dodged the chomping down of its gigantic maw to which she grasped hold of the fur on the top of its head.
In an attempt to deal with her it flared up its golden flames, practically turning itself into a living bonfire, with her inside it.
Nizael quickly surrounded herself in her white flames defending herself with them, a calm and focused expression taking hold of her face.
Focusing on all the volatile Flauna surrounding them, she forced her will onto the Flow of Flauna and expelled a copious amount of white flames, feeling the change in the Flauna around it, the Avatar began to flail about in an attempt to fling the General off of it.
The creature's body was already beginning to heal and reform, but it was already much too late; Nizael's flames were beginning to take over its flames before it enveloped the both of them, the field under them and TIOTs containing them, all of which were covered in white light and white flames.
Everything enveloped in the white light was burnt out of existence as puddles made of Flauna settled all around Nizael, along with a charcoal black core from the Avatar.
The beast wasn't even allowed the chance to cry out in pain.
***
Shock and amazement... That was all that filled the minds of the soldiers who observed the TIOTs from the encampment.
One moment all they could hear were bangs and explosions as large dents started to appear in the TIOTs from the inside.
That's what it was. One moment there was a large box made of triangles on a field, then the next moment, nothing, there was nothing. A blinding white light covered their vision and took hold of the field, even the area where they had previously set the encampment up had been swallowed up by the white light; and when it had dispersed all that was left was Flauna so saturated that it had taken the form of a liquid.
Platoon Commander Talon stood at the barricade along with Coraline Maple and a multitude of soldiers staring agape at Nizael's display of power shown through their binoculars and observation devices.
"I see, this is why she told us to pull the encampment back. She could have at least told us that she would do something so destructive."
"I've seen many recordings of Transcendental in battle, even the strange skills of Nellia Nexus during her remarkable contributions to protecting the citizens in the capital during the Kritol attack seven cycles ago — yet even when compared to the aftermath of whatever it is that the General had just done, her accomplishments couldn't even compare."
Cutting in, Coraline Maple gazed ahead of her with a gaze full of amazement. Even though all the soldiers were distracted by the sight, she hadn't bothered even trying to make them return to their duties, she was struck by momentary awe.
Coraline Maple could see a figure rise from one of the larger puddles of saturated, liquified water; her hair sticking to her skin due to her being submerged in the liquid.
Seeing her rise up, Coraline Maple wanted to approach her and get a better assessment of the situation, but she didn't know whether or not the puddles of Flauna were safe or hazardous. With that, she took the control pad out of one of the soldiers' hands and took command of one of their drones.
Approaching the drenched Nizael she observed her through the drone's camera as she wiped her soaking hair out of her face with a sigh. Using its speaker, she spoke into the control pad's microphone as she sent her words over to the General.
"General, will I and the soldiers be able to approach to further assess the situation?"
Hearing her question, Nizael glanced at the drone with slight confusion. Removing her gaze from it, she began to search for something in the liquified Flauna.
"Of course, you can do that. Why are you asking me about that, you and PC Talon are the ones in charge here?"
The drone began to hover around her due to Maple being curious as to what Nizael was searching for; though she hadn't made her thoughts clear.
"Well, we are unable to ascertain whether or not it is safe to touch and or approach all of this liquified flauna. Do tell us if we should hold any concerns."
"I see... It should be fine for you guys to get near and touch it — as long as it doesn't directly touch your skin or enter your body that is."
"What?!"
Coraline Maple was momentarily startled as she quickly began making hand symbols toward the soldiers who started to move after hearing the first half of her sentence. With them having quickly stopped she let out a sigh of relief; she almost sent her soldiers out into unknown danger.
"You should have led with that, General!"
"Oh, sorry about that. I forgot how fragile you guys were."
"..."
Upon hearing the apology, she didn't know whether to regard it as rude or not, Maple was left silent. She wanted to say something but the mere sincerity of her words left her without words.
"Ok... yes, as long as you know."
Sighing in defeat, she turned the pad's mic off and returned it to the soldier she had borrowed it from as she looked at one of the approaching soldiers, one of which who came over to hand her a biohazard suit; the others behind him already wearing theirs — she turned to PC Talon.
"I'll remain in the encampment and oversee the entirety of things, you go ahead and head into the field."
"Aye, Sir."
Throwing off any unnecessary equipment, she quickly slipped into the suit and placed a filter mask over her face before heading out into the previously beautiful field of golden grass and small hills that had been morphed into a field that was painted black, some places covered in small holes and the entirety of the perimeter soaked in liquid Flauna.
"Collect all of this liquified Flauna. I want this sent to the Tower's labs, they could use this to further their research."
After saying this the people donning the biohazard suits spread out with their equipment as they began to test and examine the liquid before they started to gather and contain them. Watching over them for a mere moment, Coraline Maple spotted Nizael and approached her.
"General!"
Calling out to Nizael, she watched as she stared at the spaces around her with a serious gaze — Nizael was still looking for whatever it was that she saw her looking for through the drone earlier.
"Hmm? What is it, Coraline Maple? Did you not finish saying what you needed to say to me through the drone earlier?"
"No, not actually, I wanted to ask what it is that you were searching for."
"Nothing of much importance. Just the core of that Avatar, If I don't find and contain it before returning it to where it belongs, It will only reform itself; not to mention the fact that it will be stronger than it originally was. I don't want to deal with that headache, I need to return and get Lulu prepared."
"W-Wh-What. Are you saying that isn't important?"
Not needing to listen to her last sentence, Maple was just left utterly shocked and annoyed by these things that Nizael deemed of little importance. The damned woman seemed to consider her granddaughter to be more important than a destructive creature.
"Tone it down."
"Yes, sorry General."
Coughing, she had to reorganize herself and calmed down a bit, even if she hadn't raised her voice - after which she opened her mouth once more.
"If you deem this creature in so little importance — if you don't see it as a threat, why would you possibly have to use such a destructive ability to deal with it?"
"I wanted to get rid of it quickly, it was wasting too much time, and I don't have a lot of that these. Let me tell you that was only a fraction of what that ability is capable of; but now that I think of it, thank you for reminding me, I need to take this— "
As she spoke in a nonchalant tone, Nizael stopped and looked at her fingers before digging into her satchel, and fishing a syringe out of the bag.
Maple Fliched as she violently stabbed the syringe into her arm, after emptying the tool's liquids into her body she released a relieved sigh. Nizael gazed at her fingers once more, noticing how they returned to their original color.
"May I ask what that was for?"
"It's to get rid of the radiation."
"I... see."
Seeing how she wasn't going to elaborate any further, she removed any thoughts of prodding any further.
Dropping the syringe back into her bag, she looked at the ground once more as her face gleamed to life at the spotting of a fairly large orb with symbols of a lost era etched within it. The symbols were glowing, but Nizael didn't bother with them.
She reached out and took hold of the orb without a hint of hesitation before stuffing it into a box from her bag that automatically locked itself up.
"Where will you be taking that to General?"
"Asora's Rift. Now, before I go, can you dear and answer a few inquiries of mine."
"What is it you wish to know?"
After she found what she was looking for, Maple didn't expect she would leave right away, though after thinking about it for a moment she realized it made sense, after all, she was only called here to deal with whatever that thing was.
Other than that, the fact that she had questions for her was also a surprise, she couldn't help raising her brow as she curiously waited for what the General wanted to know.
"As you are one of the people in charge at the moment, I wanted to know whether you did any questioning of the locals nearby."
"Yes, I and the soldiers had gone around questioning nearby people."
"Were there any spotting of the Cult— no, were there any sightings of strange or suspicious people lurking about that came here before this hazard popped up."
"Hmm... let me think... Yes, though there were quite a few sightings of people that could be considered "strange" a middle-aged Ollin, tree-chopper, said he spotted a few figures lurking in the small, well, what used to be a small gathering of trees nearby. He didn't approach them because he was minding his business, but these were the most suspicious from the information we received.
Why, is something the matter, does the situation earlier have something to do with them."
"Possibly, yes, but don't worry about it. It's just a few snakes."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Pasithea_Midnight
Pasithea_Midnight My wrist is better, but I got Covid and have been feeling horrible the past few weeks.
Life is crazy.
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Thank you!
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