A/n:
:this is funky alien thoughts oooooh:
the inconsistencies between the pronouns it-they-he and he-they-it are entirely intentional, to show who's in the 'lead', so to say.
'conflagration' is what the promare call themselves. or the closest thing, rather, since words arent really their forte
i was. definitely kinda drunk when i wrote this but here! i hope its coherent-ish. And it's mostly an experimental exercise so uh. i hope its legible? it was kinda fun to make the thought process of the lio/promare wax and wane like taking two circles of a venn diagram and moving them either further apart or closer together.
also forgive any inconsistencies because i watched this movie exactly once like a week ago and during this scene i was too busy losing my shit to pay attention to detail.
Through the veins of Mount Fennel, a Conflagration slithered upwards, to the cooling and open surface. More Conflagrations swirled around it, drawn in by the same call. There, atop its home, was a slab of cold-stillness encroaching upon the Conflagrations' territory. Inside a fire-in-flesh writhed and flared, trails of heat unspooling from it like wires. All the Conflagrations latched onto the wires to weld-melt-stoke-the-flame, their synapses flashing with strange, cold visions of the above-crust.
:sealed, frozen, burnt-to-ashes, embers smothered behind uncaring stone:
:R∆GE:
The wavering fire-in-flesh invited the Conflagrations to join his flame, the guttering-ember-fury exploding into a storm and crashing into the block holding him.
The Conflagrations burnt through his prison and the fire-in-flesh ripped into his own corporeal form, siphoning out the accursed cold-needling-stillness.
Lio and the Conflagrations lashed out like a firewhirl, and the fragile earthen bubble encasing their nest exploded.
The many-as-one poured through the cracks leading to the cold-forged-iron city bristling out of the earth, where the lost fires-in-flesh had been stolen away. The lightning-illuminated buildings rushed into view, the heated cores of fleshlings clustered inside their towers.
It-they-he rose from the earth, lava hammered into scaly armor and grasping flames curling into claws. Magmatic coils looped through passageways, the many-as-one on the hunt for the one who smothered flames, white-cold and merciless.
It was strange-familiar, looking through eyes. It-they-he glanced at one of the fleshling homes, his-their-its form in the blaze's center amorphous and flickering, horns and claws and eyes backlit like cracks of magma beneath cooled lava.
Something slammed into his-their-its body, knocking the many-as-one from the destination.
:Sparks-bristling, startled! Gray armor, cold-that-pierces-warmth!:
The armored human dug solid-cold fingers into his-their-its eye, and Lio-Conflagration blinked, expelling him in a shimmer of superheated air.
:Annoyance-firebreak, weakling!: It-they-he crowed.
There! A mountain amongst hills, and atop it, the Extinguisher.
The blast-furnace roar sent the fires around the city blazing higher as he-they-it lunged at their target, armored behind panels of steel and slag. It-they-he lunged at the tower, intent on turning the oxygenless-sealed-prison into a great crown-fire. Glacial spouts erupted from the tower's sides, slowing the many-in-one as it-they-he constricted its-their-his coils around the steel.
:Ha! Insufficient-snow, slowing-but-not-stopping, everything B∇RNS:
Words were like forcing smoke through teeth, choking and clawing, but they came nonetheless.
"K̸̛R̶∆ Y͡ ̷̢͢FO͘R̕͏E̡҉S͘I̛G̷̕HT!" He-they-it bellowed, pouring all the flame's vengeance into it-their-his breath.
:Incandescent-wr∆th, death of the Extinguisher, B∇RN TO NOTHING-:
Something screamed in their range. It was getting louder? Closer? It-
Collided like a meteor, forcing it-they-he across blocks of fleshling settlement and enclosing the many-as-one in a cargo hold.
:Confusion! Not-a-threat, clinging?:
:No! Obstacle, recognition, a cave melted-through and fires-in-flesh hidden from his kind.:
He-they-it lashed out with the acid bite of brimstone, condensed into a small body but still blazing. The armored man continued to try and pin him-them-it, shouting words that were as much sparks among a bonfire.
Then the floor opened beneath both of them, sending them plummeting to the cold ground while they grappled with each other. It-they-he burned through the reflective mirror, steam clouding both its-their-his heat-view and his-their-its image-view.
A tempest of steam erupted from the pit the pair had fallen into, and the Conflagrations felt their ties of fire-and-kindred start to wane.
:Wailing of loss, gone, connection of fuel-heat-air severed!: The Conflagrations flickered at their host.
:Still-here.: He whispered back. :∆lways-connected, call upon you when embers burn low:
:Resignation, wishing-the-world-otherwise:
:Goodbye, for now:
—
However tenuous the wire that connected the young fire-in-flesh to the Conflagration was, it still screamed back to life with just a spark. First, with the shrieks and howls of the fires-in-flesh like tinder-flames being blown out. Then, the call of their kin and every Conflagration, synced and un-synced, answering them. The desire to run wild, set the world ablaze, dance among each others' fires like they had always meant to-
The World B∇RNS
The Conflagrations converge and gleefully fly away, thousands of smoke-whisper farewells echoing each other as Conflagrations left their fires-in-flesh. The now single Conflagration brushed across its fire-in-flesh gently. Lio, he called them. Or him, rather; for they were no longer one fire-life-soul.
:Goodbye. Forever, this time:
A/N: can you tell i tried to cram as many fire/heat based terminology and metaphors as i could? also i figured like midway through this fic that oh, duh, promare would probably see via infrared or heat vision instead of light-based images like humans do. I kinda get mild hivemind vibes from the unconnected promare, and that definitely showed up here i think.
Mostly inspired by a brief convo in the promare discord about whether or not it was the promare in the volcano that broke Lio out. obviously you can see what i decided lmao