Fire In The Night [Koga]

[Ethereal-Star]

Tags @Koga

Fire, fire, burning in the night.
Fire, fire, forcefully taking one's life.
Of orange flames of death and destruction,
Discordant seeds of chaos and anarchic disruption.

Fire. Pepper absolutely hated fire. The very concept filled her with both dread and extreme loathing. After all why wouldn't someone hate the very thing that killed them? Not to mention those who initially set the fire to begin with. The person or persons responsible would eventually get what was coming to them, Pepper would make absolutely sure of  it. Until that happened, she was stuck here in the mortal plane, a ghostly spirit to wander for all time, seeking the vengeance so out of reach, yet that promised a certain sort of comfort and peace. It was all she knew now anyway. Vengeance.

Holding her ghostly sword, a weapon just as incorporeal as she was, the white-haired ghost drifted onwards as she looked for yet again, a way to ease her pain. Blackened burns covered her once pale white skin, orange eyes afire with malice and a desire for closure. Walking on, her feet barely touching the ground underneath her, Pepper thought she spotted something of interest. Or rather someone.

Fire he wields, fire he commands. The thought came unbidden to her mind, as Pepper looked at the red-haired young man wearing colorful robes just as vibrant as his striking hair. A phoenix bird of fire flew overhead of him, the two supposedly together on some quest, mission, thing. Whatever. Pepper cared not. All she knew was this mage of flaming color was a threat. After all why wouldn't he be? He wielded the powers of fire and that was reason enough. A staff he held in one hand as he walked the darkened road through the woods, a sharp pointed blade sticking out from the top of it.

Pepper darted quickly behind some trees and made her form that less visible to the naked eye as she seemingly became even more transparent than before. Time to spill some blood. She thought, a grin on her ghostly features. She floated a little ways upward, still covered by the trees around her. Waiting for the perfect time to strike.

[Koga]

The image of fire reflected in his indomitable yellow eyes as Wildfire paced through the wood, lighting up the ground before him with a ball of flames. Fia flew ahead of him, her feathers in the form of fire in order to shine a beacon of light in the darkness. It was a normal night in the Niahi woods; the trees were so dense with branches and leaves that scarcely any moon-light shined through, and so the duo was forced to create their own light. The flame-haired boy used his golden fire-spear as a walking stick as he trekked through the forest, looking around for landmarks. He had grown quite used to the woods after having spent a lot of time in its' natural embrace. However, he had forgotten just how dark it could get here. After all, he just arrived this morning from Serendipity. He was still wearing the robes he left in too, the expensive silks he received at the Elementalists' Guild. Dark red with golden fire embroidery, and a yellow sash tied around his waist. A normal man would be cautious not to get them dirty in such a forest, but Wildfire was definitely not an ordinary man.

The Mages' eyes saw.. something. A flash of movement behind some trees, and for a moment he thought of inspecting it. However, he decided against it. It's just your nerves Koda.. He thought to himself, continuing through the wood. Yet, an eery feeling began to overtake him. The last time he had felt something so frightening within him was when he met a "demon" in the same forest. Except... he wasn't much of a demon, just a man with a curse of terror placed on him, poor thing. Regardless, there were no demons here tonight, Wildfire was sure of that.

He was brought back to his reason for coming here when he heard the cries of a child in the distance. The daughter of a wealthy merchant had gotten lost somewhere in the forest on their annual visit to La'marri, and now the man was offering a hefty reward for his daughters' safe return. Wildfire needed some money for his visit to the seer the next morning anyway, so he figured why not help?

The Firebird looked down to him upon hearing the scream, and Wildfire responded to her with a nod. "Go check it out Fi."

[Ethereal-Star]

The night was definitely dark, but Pepper didn't have any problem with navigating the woods. She was a ghost after all, mortal vision did nothing to deter her anymore. So it was as she watched the young mage walk through with his atrocious golden spear-staff, his bird having flown off somewhere away from him, Pepper decided to make a move. Granted she didn't reveal herself yet, not before she had some fun at the fire mage's expense.

Still hovering a bit in the air behind the trees, she crept forward a little, tattered ghostly gown trailing after her, and let out an eerie sound of "Eeeeeeeee!" Snickering quietly afterwards. She let the haunting cry and what it could possibly entail sink into the mage's awareness making no further sounds. All was quiet for now as she watched with glee his reaction.

[Koga]

"WHA-AAAAH!" The Fire mage shouted, as he turned around and slashed his Fire-Spear into the air, and with it flew a slash of red and orange flames. The light shined as a beacon in the sky, but hit nothing. Wildfire stared at the fire as it flew out into the night sky, then faded away. He was searching for the source of the sound, however he could not see a thing. Where did that dreadful scream come from? Why had it sounded so close? Was it even real? So many questions, so little answers. Am I just... hearing things? He asked himself, but that didn't seem likely. He wasn't even that frightened until just now. The man pointed his staff in the air defensively, waiting for another scream.

Wildfire stuttered as he tried to call out to the source of the scream, "W..wh-who g-goes there?" His hands shook lightly as he held his staff in the air. "Stay back."

[Ethereal-Star]

A ghostly laughter could clearly be heard as Wildfire pointed his staff around in a defensive manner. "Somebody is scaaaarrred, who could it be? A fire mage with a spear!" Pepper called out, still hidden from view. "Scared little mage, all alone in the woods at night! It's too bad your bird bit the dust." Of course, this was a bluff as the bird was alive and well as far as Pepper knew. She just wanted to see how far she could take this before materializing in front of him.

She continued to laugh as she moved about behind the trees, her voice coming from first here, then there, continuing to move around as though to give the illusion that her laughter came from everywhere at once. Pepper was determined to give this mage a real scare. Then she would finish him.

[Koga]

"You're lying!" Wildfire shouted swinging his fire staff wildly into the air, blindly hurling flames into the forest. Now he was angry. All the fear in his body had been replaced with pure rage. Nobody threatens Fia, not while he was still alive. He wasn't sure if the ghost had been telling the truth or not, but he didn't care either. This creature was going to burn for what she said, whether Fia was alive or not. Fire burned in the Mages heart, his yellow eyes darted all around him, desperately looking for the source of this evil.

His efforts were to no avail. He heard her laughter to his left, then to his right. Before he knew it it was coming from everywhere around him. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus on his hearing, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't pinpoint her location. Where is she... The voice was coming from everywhere, how could he possibly tell where the ghouls' next move would come from?

Wildfire decided to give up on trying to find her. Instead, he had a better idea. Taking his staff above his head, the Mage kindled a small flame atop it. Then he reaffirmed his grip on the fire-staff, and spun it in circles above his head. As he spun the staff faster, and faster, the ball of fire above it began shift into a ring above his head, slowly expanding. He kept this going for a few moments, before slamming the spear-staff down into the ground before him, and with that the ring of fire shot out into the forest striking any unlucky enough to be caught in its path.

[Ethereal-Star]

Miraculously the random bolts of fire did not hit the ghost, but when the mage began conjuring up a fire circle above his head and flung it out into the woods around them, Pepper got hit with a blast of heat and burning flames. She shrieked in both anger and pain, and when the agony of it started to ebb away, she sneered at the fool and shouted. "Imbecile! You cannot kill me, I'm already dead!"

The darkened forest was quiet for a bit as she tried to recover from the fiery assault, vengeance burning ever greater in her soul. When Pepper was ready to show herself, then the moron would know his unfortunate mistake before she ran him through with her ghostly sword.

[Koga]

"DOESN'T MEAN I CAN"T TRY!" The young Fire Mage shouted upon hearing the ghosts' voice. He couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the sound, but he had a pretty good idea where she was hiding now. All around them, trees were now burning. Charred up bark, and blazing leaves fell from the air. Wildfire gazed around at all the destruction for a moment, and smiled to himself. If Fia was still around, (and she probably was) she was bound to see the flames eventually. Wildfire pointed his staff in the direction of the voice, and began to pull all the fire from the trees toward his staff. All the fire he had sent into the woods, now formed into one small flame directly in front of his mouth. The Mage stood there, now using his spear as a walking stick, and opened his mouth. A mighty roar exited his lips, and the wind from his mouth blew into the flame. As it did, the Fire grew larger and larger, hurling a destructive force of flames straight into the darkness. His mouth became a miniature flamethrower, and a straight line of flames flew towards the voice. The Mage wasn't sure if it would hit, but at least someone would see the flare.

[Ethereal-Star]

The first toss of flame hit Pepper, but only part of it singed her ghostly form. Normally, fire couldn't hurt the ghost anymore as she was dead, but magic fire was a different story, being born of an arcane source of energy. Thus why this man was a threat as well as all mages with fire powers. She moved as fast as she could out of the way of the next several flame tosses and grimaced, her features twisted in pain as she once again waited for the burning sensations to stop. Of course even magic fire had its limits too, as it could only harm her but not kill. You can't kill something that was already dead!

Pepper snarled in hatred at the fire mage. Now he's toast, she thought. She began to move quietly towards him but from behind and made sure to be as concealing in form as she possibly could. While Pepper couldn't go outright invisible to the eye, she was able to nearly do so having had enough practice over the many years of being dead. Right now, she looked like a thin white and blue outline against the night sky if Koda were to turn around and look. Gripping her sword in hand, Pepper smiled darkly. It was time, she thought.