A/N: There are character descriptions in my profile.
Prologue:
Apay, the World Fire Sprite, looked at the page floating between her hands and nodded at it. Ink began to flow across the page forming ancient words. She continued, her words weaving a purpose into the page: "But some Fire Magic is at the very core of my Being. If any part of me exists, then it can be recalled. And the deeper that Knowledge, the more potent the power, the more likely I am to still have it, even if I can't understand it - until now." The page began to glow. "And now, dear Usurper, I'm about to share that knowledge with the World again." At that, the page vanished. - From "Kasumi's Wedding", last paragraph of Chapter 2
Chapter 1: Combatants (Tuesday, December 24, 2002)
Toshio Kuno reviewed the dispatches from China. The supplies he had over-nighted made it, along with the Fire Mages. They had performed the incantation, and now everything was set. The mercenaries trying to collect the bounty on Henna's head (the one Kuno had increased as of late) had chafed at the delay, but they had postponed the attack on Henna's stronghold. They also agreed to wait for Kuno's people to leave the area so long as Kuno offered to pay for their time upfront.
"Now we see if this is a trap or a discovery," he thought. To say he was suspicious was an understatement. "A piece of forgotten Fire Lore shows up suddenly in three different places - including my Nerima compound? And it's complete enough not to need any further research despite its complexity? Bullshit! I'd blame Ono for this except he seemed genuinely surprised when he saw it. My agents say he immediately locked himself away with a copy for two hours and then called every mage he could think of."
Kuno's own mages were either ecstatic or terrified at the find. The one who first tried to cast it leveled her lab. She walked out of the disaster area only a little singed but otherwise unharmed. She was also completely lost in wonderment. It took Kuno's people about two hours to snap her out of it. When the mage returned to herself, she spoke like a possessed woman in a hyper voice instructing anyone who would listen. She told everyone the spell needed multiple people to cast it - three people was the absolute minimum, and the more people, the stronger the spell.
"She said it was like a cosmic eraser. It tapped into the Power of Creation and restored everything to its simplest, most inert state," Kuno mused. "It manifests as a fireball and sets fire to everything, including magical items. The others were terrified that the Fire wouldn't stop, but it seemed to follow normal rules after the initial fuel used in the spell was burned up. Giving it new fuel without the spell doesn't extend the magic. The real question is what it does to Henna's troops…"
Henna looked out over the ravine that led to her stronghold. "That blasted demon blocked my scrying port," she thought. "But he can't touch my spies. I know the attack is scheduled for tonight. The people in Yushu are terrified of me - they'd sell out their own parents to have me feed on anyone but them." Off in the distance, Henna heard them: four Russian attack helicopters raced toward her from out over the valley. They were invisible in the dark – to everyone but Henna. "You're late, idiots," she thought contemptuously. "If you wanted to catch me off-guard, you should have attacked during the Solstice – not that the outcome is going to be any different."
Mist rose quickly in the ravine filling it completely. As the copters closed in on the mouth of the ravine, they somehow saw the mist and quickly broke off to the west instead of entering the ravine. "What?" she thought surprised. "They're breaking off their attack?" She watched as they accelerated away. "They knew not to dare the mist…interesting. Someone is learning." She sat down at the top of the ravine near the edge. She thought about sending clouds after them, but they were too far away now to target accurately. That's when she heard the first crash about one hundred meters behind her. She heard something hit the ground hard and the sound of fluid splashing. She sent her Power out, but found nothing. "That's not water based." Then she heard a crash closer and more fluid spilling - now she could smell it. "Someone's definitely learning. That's napalm. They're going to light the top of the cliff - possibly because they detected me - probably using infrared." The thudding and splashing was becoming frequent now – and closer. Henna stepped off the cliff and walked on the mist. She watched dispassionately as some sort of missile slammed down and flames roared all over the cliff top. The heat was intense, but Henna was fine wrapped in mist.
"Who's ever doing this is too high for me to detect. I can't hear anything either. But they struck with precision. This is not some ragtag bunch of mercenaries – the weapons are too high tech. The attackers are well-funded." More napalm bombs fell from the skies and fed the flames, spurting flaming fluid everywhere. Some of the napalm fell near Henna, but the unlit containers passed harmlessly into the mist. The roar the flames was deafening though.
If it wasn't for Henna's active premonition, she would have never noticed the helicopters returning to the fight. She turned just in time to see the attack helicopters launch a missile volley and then tear upwards. Henna watched confused for a moment as the missiles came nowhere near her but vanished into the mist. "What the hell?" she wondered loudly. "If they knew to avoid the mist, then they should know that the house is untouchable!" Just as she uttered those words, the mist lit brightly from within and there was a tremendous explosion beneath her. Henna was blasted high into the air and back towards the burning napalm. She called the mist to her and used it to push back the napalm by wrapping the fluid in rock and soil. She also used the mist to soften her impact as she fell onto bare rock, but it still hurt.
Rage filled her. She staggered upright as chunks from the upper floors of her house fell on the landscape around her. As she watched the pieces morphed into body parts and even complete corpses. Then the pieces began to burn in the napalm. More barrels of napalm fell, splitting open and adding to the fire. "That's not possible!" she thought. "The Fire is freeing the souls I have captive! NO!" She began calling water up from the soil to force the fire away from the body pieces, but her premonition kicked in again. She turned to see the helicopters firing again at her home. "I'll kill them! I'll kill them all!" she shouted. But there were more explosions and more pieces of her house were blown up into the air again. The pieces hit the ground and became corpses. She watched angrily as some of the corpses staggered up and dove into the flames.
She looked at the copters tearing away again. "I'll replace them with you!" she roared. She forgot about the escaping souls and sent her mist after the closest helicopter. The copter wasn't quiet fast enough to get away and the mist caught the machine by the tail. Henna made a vicious gesture with her fist. The mist slammed the copter against the side of the ravine, then let it drop out of sight. "I'll collect them later," she thought. "The mist will hold them for now."
The other helicopters were climbing out of range. "They're not done," she thought. "But they won't come in range again. They're just going to bomb my house from a distance. Somehow, they have Blessed Fire. It's been re-discovered! " Already, she could feel the copters leveling off and preparing another run. "I have to stop them," she added grimly. With that thought, she jumped off the cliff and sank into the mist.
Razor looked down at the sleeping Village wrapped in its white mist. "Henna's fighting again, and I'm the only one who knows," the Amazon elder thought. She fingered the amulet about her neck. "All the others see and hear nothing outside the Village. Not even the sentries are aware." She looked over the hills where flashes lit up the sky and explosions sounded.
She stood there for some time watching the distant fight until she heard someone coming up the hill behind her. "Good evening General Xie," she called out without turning around.
"You must tell me how you do that sometime," a male voice responded. Razor turned to see a fit middle aged Han Chinese man dressed in military fatigues walking toward her.
"I'm an Amazon warrior, even at this age," she answered him. "No one gets the drop on me."
The general snorted lightly. "Normally, I'd scoff at that, but I've seen you in action – I don't doubt it."
"Who is it this time?" Razor asked gesturing at the distant fight.
"A bunch of Australian mercs with backing. They managed to get hold of some good Russian hardware. They are good – very good. They even did some research," he answered. He took out a cigarette and lit it. "I think half of them might get away."
"And they'll add to the research," Razor said with a sigh.
Xie nodded. "It's going to happen," he said. "There's nothing you can do about it. The Enemy has been burning resources for a long time now. Sooner or later, she'll over extend herself and your village will pay the price – one way or another."
"You won't overrun us or use a nuke," Razor snorted. "We're on the world stage now. You know we have researchers living among us."
"We won't have to," Xie said calmly. "If you don't listen to me, the researchers themselves will tell you to move." Razor looked at him distrustfully. "Despite what you believe," he started again. "Beijing doesn't what you dead, Elder. The Amazons were once guardians of a great Power. Killing you may unleash that Power on Beijing, and we don't want it. We want it gone – we want nothing within our boarders we cannot control – or at least isolate. We have taken steps and formed alliances toward that end. Your people will help us – you will have to in the end in order to survive here."
"I severely doubt that," Razor said harshly and disdainfully.
"I wouldn't," he told her. "Beijing is not without our own Seers – and not all of them are mystical. We know several things you don't."
"We have our own Lore," Razor snapped.
"And yet, you're using our Lore to see the Truth about Henna," he replied smoothly while pointing at the amulet around her neck. Razor looked annoyed and was about to take it off when he stopped her by stating: "You are the only hope for the survival of your people. Will you allow your Pride to destroy them?"
She blew out a deep breath at him in frustration as she dropped her arms. "What do you want from us?" she demanded.
"I want you to start preparing a copy of your Lore. I also want you to choose five to ten fertile couples to take care of that copy. You should choose couples with a sense of adventure and a certain restlessness about them," he answered.
"You want me to give you ten breeding couples," she asked amazed.
"These are likely to leave the village anyway, so the loss to your tribe won't be all that great," he replied. "Some of them you will be glad to get rid of anyway."
"All our people are important," she said sharply.
"What happened to the blind boy? Mousse was his name I believe?" the general asked in an off-handed tone. Razor snapped her mouth shut. "Five to ten couples," Xie reiterated. "Let them know they are going on an adventure to foreign lands – one that will probably take the rest of their lives to accomplish."
"I will not do this!" Razor snarled.
Xie turned to walk away. Over his shoulder, he said: "But you will, Elder Razor. If you don't do it, Beijing will not help you. And you're about to need our help badly. Have the couples ready to travel by the Equinox. They will leave sometime after that." With that, he walked away, leaving Razor to grind her teeth.
Henna looked at the wreckage of the two helicopters. The fourth one had gotten away, despite the storm she set on it. The first copter was still in the ravine waiting for her. None of the airmen from these two machines survived the crashes, but Henna did not care – she had managed to stop their souls from escaping. Everything that they knew would be hers. "And they can tell me who or what threw the barrels of napalm," she thought. "I couldn't find the bomber. I'm not sure now if there was one. It might have been some type of artillery."
She looked at a nearby corpse that had been thrown from one of the copters. "Your mine now." She raised her hand and began to chant. Her voice would have sounded hollow to living mortals had any been around to hear her and her words matched no known language. Clear water seemed to ooze out of the nearest corpse and surround the body as a puddle. The corpse began to wither and shrink in on itself. The puddle grew quite large and refused to soak into the ground; instead beading up and away from the ground as much as gravity would allow. Then sharp cracking sounds came from the corpse over and over again. Henna smiled as the air above the corpse began screaming. The corpse contracted becoming shorter and thinner, drying out even further and resembling an unwrapped mummy – dried and shriveled. Now screaming came from other corpses at the crash site and Henna's smile grew wider. She raised her hand higher, palm out. Suddenly she clenched her fists and the screaming rose to shake its surroundings. The water pooled about the corpse flowed toward Henna, rising further from the ground until it resembled a snake. Other water snakes came from here and there in the wreckage. The water snakes undulated to Henna amidst the screaming and coiled around her. Henna's smile changed from malice to pleasure. She raised her other fist so both of them were held high. Then her hands snapped open and pleasure became ecstasy. The water coiled about her, contracted, and sank effortlessly into her frame. It vanished without a trace and the screaming stopped. Henna stood there for a long time afterward with her eyes closed.
Finally, she sighed happily and opened her eyes. Before her stood several shrunken nude zombies, their gender lost to the dust. "Welcome to the family," she told them. "And thank you for the information. I'm happy so many more will be joining us – starting with that group attacking in seven days." A red light flickered briefly in some of the zombies' eyes, the last vestiges of their free will. Henna gave a nasty smirk and said: "Now, my house is missing two floors and needs some repair work. Let's go gather the rest of your friends and we can get started. Then I will deal with Toshio Kuno…"
Kuno looked at the dispatches from his observers in China. He turned to one of his ninjas and said:
"Have someone debrief the survivors immediately. Then pass the information around Yushu to the other teams trying for the bounty on Henna. Let them know that Henna was waiting for this team, so there are leaks. I'd advise cancelling and re-scheduling any planned attacks. Also, put the word out I want to hire more mages - Fire Mages in particular, but I'll take who I can get. Advertise that the job is in Chengdu."
"Are we setting up a base there, Master? Should I ready the team to move?" the ninja asked.
"No. Things weren't *that* successful," Kuno told his man. "But a dent was made. Maybe - just maybe - we can keep Henna's eyes focused in China."
The demon sat on a hillside looking down as Henna marshaled her new 'family members' and marched them to the stairway cut into the ravine that appeared at Henna's command. The demon (some said his name was Ba) was only mildly interested - he'd check out the lot later and see if there was any truly evil souls among them that he could feed on. If nothing else, maybe he could feed on their terror - the souls imprisoned by Henna were starting to resist him. In truth, the demon did inspire terror. His head was mostly bovine including the horns, but no bull or cow ever had such a collection of fangs. The body looked like an large emaciated human with a thick red hide except for the huge hands which bore long sharp claws about two decimeters long. It was the claws that announced the thing's occupation. The monster was a Soul Collector, a demon sent from Hell to retrieve escaped spirits. This time, its job wasn't to return a soul, but to collect one long overdue for Hell – the spirit of the Amazon Henna, current Regent of the Seasons and enslaver of Queen Mizu. Unfortunately, Henna was still alive. But Ba was patient, and he gleefully served as a reminder to Henna that her days were numbered (even if she had apparently triumphed over the Sprite's plan to kill her). Such was the price of mortality.
Once Henna was gone, Ba leapt up and strode down to the now empty battlefield. He walked over to one of the burnt out areas and knelt down. The demon stirred the ashes with one of his fingers and then tasted the remains by touching his tongue. His cat eyes narrowed in surprise as his body shook ever so slightly. Then he lifted his head and roared his silent laughter at the uncaring stars.
A/N: Next up - Visitations