Elementally Bound: Part 3
----- Prototype -----
The shuffling of an approaching Ember caught the woman's attention. "You are my charge?" she said, turning her head to the sound.
"Not for long," Ember grunted, glowering at the woman. Her mind raced with a million different ways to escape and vanquish Kievaa.
"For as long as Kievaa wills it you are." The woman said in a stoically monotone voice.
Ember growled. "Until I rip her ears off."
A slight grin seemed to adorn the woman's pale face, if only for a fraction of a second. She turned to examine Ember, awkwardly leaned forward, moving her entire head as she looked her over. "You are unique. You glow with the brightness of a torch."
"Uh… Thanks?" Ember rubbed her shoulder a few times. Her entire body ached from the machine and the suit seemed to continuously pull at her - albeit not as violently as the extraction process she'd just endured.
She took the woman's presumptuous examination as the opportunity to do the same. The visor the woman wore and the scorch marks around them, while intriguing, wasn't the focus of Ember's attention, however. Her hands were clad in gauntlets of fire, which wrapped around each arm, then buried themselves into the woman's flesh. "Normally, under different circumstances, I'd like to know a bit more about those," she confessed.
"Under different circumstances," the woman repeated with the same inflection.
Ember frowned. "Yeah, well, you know… since you are helping to kill me and all." She sighed, rubbed the back of her neck, and looked into the sky. "Ironic really. I lost… I finally lost. I wanted to know how to get power like hers, and now I'm stuck here."
Ember snapped back to the conversation. "What? No. No one is all powerful. No, not the rodent and definitely not someone like Joko. We're in an era where gods themselves can die."
"Joko cannot. And once Kievaa trades your pow…" she stopped suddenly, grunted in pain, and clawed a flamed hand at the visor. Flesh beneath it immediately began to smoke as the fire seared it.
"What? What's wrong?" Ember gritted her teeth.
As quickly as the woman's ordeal had started, it stopped. She stood upright, nodding to someone unseen, as trails of the charred flesh on her cheeks still smoked from the attempt to remove the visor.
Ember raised an eyebrow. "So you aren't fireproof, though your hands are on fire."
She held up her hand, inspecting it. Rods from the gauntlets dove into her forearm as the fingertips glowed like lava. "A preventative measure, courtesy of our master."
"Let me guess, you're going to get some of my power to make you more normal?"
The woman looked puzzled. "I am not normal?" She lingered on the question for a moment before shrugging. "Kievaa has plans for you; I am ordered to observe you and ensure you do not stray."
Ember sighed at the hopeless situation. In all her musings of how to cook the Asura, and all the escape plans she'd calculated, not one seemed as though it didn't involve removing Kievaa's control of her. She approached the edge, stared into the distance, occasionally glancing at the woman. 'Prototype,' Kievaa had said. Ember considered: If Kievaa had been controlling the woman all this time, the suit she now wore may be the perfected process. "If only there was a way to gain enough power to overload it," she murmured.
As if a response, the ground vibrated from the nearby volcano. Ember's eyes grew wide as idea formulated. "You're to journey with me? Fine. Then my destination is Mount Maelstrom."
The woman looked at Ember suspiciously, but the visor showed the woman's internal core heat up with the idea.
"That's the best place to appease your master," Ember implored.
The woman nodded. "This I can do."
"Good," Ember said. "What's your name anyway? I'm Ember, but I'm sure you already were told that."
The woman softly and almost imperceptibly sighed. "She tells me very little, actually. But, my name is Shiera. Shiera Soelnarr." She seemed to take pride at announcing the last name.
"Uh… yeah," Ember said awkwardly. "So, how are we going to get there? We walking?"
Shiera lead the woman to a few tied up raptors. Ember was elated to see a flamelander. While not her own Cinder, he'd have to do in this situation. Shiera climbed aboard a larger raptor, crystal bloodstone spikes protruding covering its back and joints.
"We ride," Shiera said as she pulled the reigns, guided her raptor down the trail.
The couple traveled a quick trot, but it was still much slower than Ember wanted. After riding ahead of her keeper, then having to wait for her to catch up several times, Ember resolved to just traveling the steady pace. She used the opportunity to probe a bit more. "That visor you wear… You looked like you wanted to remove it, but couldn't."
Shiera nodded knowingly. "Kievaa has seen to it that I cannot remove it, though…" she hesitated. "I'm uncertain if I would do so, again, even if I could."
Ember glanced at the bracers and back to the woman's visor. The charred streaks almost looked like tears down the woman's face. "So, the pyro-gloves are there to keep you from taking it off? And you said 'again' meaning you've managed to remove it before?"
"Aye. Once. A bit after my return, I did. The master was not pleased. Her commands no longer affected me, and I was punished severely."
"The gloves I'm guessing?" Ember searched.
Shiera sighed slightly. "Among other things," she said, defeat in her words.
Ember trailed behind for a moment. This woman was as much of a captive as she was and she was filled with empathy. 'Prototype;' Kievaa's words echoed in her mind.
As the raptors descended into a wooded area, Shiera raised her voice over the snapping twigs and crunching foliage. "This existence is not as dire as you seem to believe. I am saved!" Her voice still lacked melody at the exclamation.
Ember raised an eyebrow at the statement. "You… You'd be better off as your own master, you know. If you believe your existence is great, then you've never really tasted freedom."
"I do not eat," Shiera retorted.
"What… What are you?" Ember blinked, pausing her raptor.
Shiera continued down the slope echoing the question. "What are you?"
Ember groaned. "I'm just someone who wants to be free."
"Such a thing is not currently possible," Shiera said, cryptically.
"Well, it doesn't matter. My time is probably limited anyway," Ember said, considering.
This statement caused Shiera to come to a sudden stop. "Limited how?"
Ember diverted her raptor from ramming into the back of her and came to sit beside her. "Well," she said, adjusting her saddle. "I'm probably going to be killed by this."
For the first time since their meeting, Shiera's expression changed. She looked perplexed and slightly frightened.
"Yeah," Ember acknowledged the woman's look. "Thank your 'savior' for that."
Shiera dismounted, tied her raptor to a tree, and began walking toward a nearby cave entrance. "Come."
Ember tilted her head for a moment, then shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" she said sarcastically.
The interior of the cave held a moisture and a stench most found repulsive. Shiera took in a deep breath, feeling the coolness of the cave and the smells which accompanied it. Ember looked puzzled. They proceeded further down into the cave without a word, and came to stand in the center of a hollowed out area, surrounded by the thick cave walls.
"In here," Shiera's whisper echoed, "she cannot listen."
Ember looked around. "Who? And why?"
"Kievaa. There is something about the deposits in the caves which breaks the signal. I do not understand it all, I confess." Her expression was a hopeful sorrow.
"Okay, so why would you bring me here? We need to get to Mount Maelstrom."
Shiera turned her head, as though inspecting the cave. "I brought you here so we could speak freely, but we haven't much time before her signal reconnects. I wish to help you regain your freedom, Ember."
Ember's brow furrowed. "Why would you…"
"Because it is my belief you can assist me in regaining mine," the woman stated, the tiniest touch of emotion in the words.
A suspicious Ember tilted her head. "What about your savior?"
Shiera sighed and came closer to Ember. "She's not my savior; that's just what she wants to hear. This existence is torture. I do her bidding, without control to stop myself. I only have autonomy when she's not listening and whispering things to me. I can't see without my visor, but it would be preferable to being this… this slave to her."
Ember looked for subterfuge but found none. "Then help me get to that volcano… and throw me in."
"If you do that, you will cease and Kievaa will do unspeakable things to me for allowing it. Her punishments are severe. She is… She is vile," Shiera's normally monotone voice cracked.
"You think I'm in this suit because I can burn? Just get me to that volcano. If we're lucky the suit won't last and I'll gain power enough to face her. This isn't my first time in a volcano, you know, but if this suit just drains the power I collect, I may 'cease' as you say."
Shiera looked concerned. "But if you are incinerated, I shall never know who I am… Only a failed prototype, as my owner proclaims."
Ember's smile was warm. She almost wanted to hug the desperate woman. "Let's just go. Get me there, and I'll handle the rest. Then I'm going to fry that little skritt and find someone to help you gain your freedom."
Shiera suddenly cried out in pain, brought her flame engulfed hands to the visor, then stopped herself from clawing at it. "She's back," she whispered.
Nodding, Ember turned, began ascending back to their raptors. Shiera stood behind and whispered an apology to her master.
--------
The journey after the cave had been quick. Ember noted a marked increase in speed as they came closer to their goal and hoped it was a sign Shiera believed in her plan. She'd questioned it a few times herself, but she had begun to feel weak again from the suit, and felt somewhat broken and defeated. First the loss at the battle with the ice queen, followed by Kievaa's vile contraptions and machinations, and now Shiera's enslavement shook her to her core. It was like looking at the worst possible outcome: a life of servitude, torture, and capture. And it was this horrible reality that propelled her forward.
"This… This course of action seems reckless, Ember." Shiera said as they ascended an overhanging at the mouth of the volcano. "How can you be sure you won't perish?"
Ember took in a breath. She could feel the power from the heat below. "I've dove into lava before. I'll be fine," she said, trying to convince herself. "Once I get out of this…"
"If you do not make it out of this, it won't matter. Kievaa will see to my decimation… my destruction… my damnation for your loss." Shiera's voice almost sounded like the nasally Asura.
"You'll just have to try to trust me," Ember said, moving closer to the edge of the precipice.
Shiera groaned as she touched the visor where her temple would be. After a moment, she looked forward, her face wiped clean and devoid of emotions. "She… She will not allow me to allow you to do this!" She drew two axes of red crystal, the fires from the volcano reflecting and refracting upon the blades.
Ember gritted her teeth. "Too late!" she said as she stepped over the edge.
"No!" Shiera screamed, dropped the axes and dove to grab Ember's arm.
Contact was made. Ember yelped at the sudden jerky stop. She hang limply above the innards of the volcano, suspended by her keeper's fiery grip.
"Ember, please," Shiera struggled to hold on. "Kievaa will destroy the very essence of me; I won't return to the mists! There… There must be another way…"
"Let go. It's the only way! I don't want to drag you with me!" Ember yelled.
Shiera held the woman, both externally and internally struggling. She knew what fate awaited her upon her return without the woman. But, she also couldn't condemn another person to the same oppression she'd been forced into.
An eternity seemed to pass, then with a heavy heart, Shiera released her grip, allowing the woman to fall into the heart of Mount Maelstrom. She took in a breath, watching Ember further than most could, with the help of her visor. "I… I wished us to be friends," she mumbled.
Ember fell, plummeting unceremoniously to the pool of lava below. She plunged into the surface of the lava with a thud and thick splash. A bright red glow emanated from the impact zone, a neon glow brighter than the orange lava, coming from Ember's suit. The glow subsided as the lava flowed around her, sliding around the suit's projected holograms, creating a barrier preventing contact with the occupant. At once, all the projections began to glow brightly, as they collected the heat from the surrounding lava, which finally dimmed and turned a solid black.
Ember looked around in confusion, then growled in annoyance, and attempted clawing at the suit around her to let the lava pour in. It was futile. She was completely surrounded by pyrite. The woman cried out in frustration, roared at the volcano, at the lava, at the suit, at her situation, at the ice queen, and at the Asura.
A sudden high-pitched squeal came from the suit and Ember felt as she was being torn apart. She cried out in agony. If she could have reached them, she would have ripped her ears off at the noise. Her very body felt as though it were disintegrating, pulled apart piece by piece. Her scream echoed in the hollows, until… it was no longer there.
Ember stood, her head hanging limply. She opened her eyes to see Kievaa waddling over to the teleportation pad she'd been recalled to.
"Welcome back, fire-bookah!" the vile Asura said with a wicked grin.
To Be Continued...
