Chapter 6:Ignition

They hit like a storm, but we hit back just as hard. One minute Elsa and I were running into a hoard of monsters, the next everything was fangs and claws. I was standing next to her one second, and the next it was just me surrounded by angry vampires. I smiled as I pulled the triggers, letting Frostbite and Marshmallow tear through whatever was in front of me.

Muzzles flashed as I danced through the wave of vampire zombies. My leg snapped out, knocking a young man in the chin. Twisting, I crossed my arms behind my back and blew a couple away with both guns. I twisted my body and spun on the ground. The momentum carried me into a flip over a rushing vampire and our foreheads touched for the briefest of moments. Well, before I blew his brains out.

As I touched ground, I drew Summerglow in a blaze of orange glory. Smiling to myself, I thrust her forward, impaling a creature on my sword. She writhed in agony, clutching at the white hot blade, only burning her fingers in the process. I stepped forward and swung my sword, cleaving her into two well-cooked halves. They flopped to the ground and I kicked one to the side with my boot. The wall of vampires hesitated before me as I stood tall, blazing sword at my side. I smirked and opened my mouth to say something witty about tenderloin. I was cut off when the ground rumbled beneath me, knocking me and most of the monsters off their feet.

Butt on the ground, I looked up to see ice crystals shooting out of the concrete with bodies hanging off the jagged points. I scrambled back to my feet and dashed to ground zero. Swinging my sword, I saw bits of vampire fly past me while screams resonated into my ears. I shook off the gore and kept running as fast as I could to Elsa.

A blast of arctic air threw the monsters in the air. It almost lifted me off my feet before I managed to brace myself. I threw my arms in front of me as the familiar frost coated my sleeves and the legs of my pants. Shaking it off, I looked towards the now-open circle of vampires with Elsa standing in the center.

She was covered in slight scratches and scrapes, most of them already beginning their fast healing process. Sadly the clothes did not have any form of healing, but I wasn't in a position to care about that. She was panting, her right arm hanging limply by her side while the other supported her. Her makeshift ice fortress had already been shredded by the vampiric rush, and the air around her was dull with fatigue. I almost slapped myself. She only had that body for about 24 hours, of course she can't properly fight with it.

I wanted to slap myself, but I had more important priorities. I dashed across the frosted ground towards her, watching as her eyes began to glow in desperation. "Elsa!" I called out. The aura dropped immediately as her head snapped in my direction. "Fall back! I'll cover y-"

The words had barely left my lips as a pair of fangs drove themselves into my neck. My feet flew out from under me as the vampire tackled me to the ground. Immediately another vampire jumped on top of me, clawing at my chest. A third followed suit and a fourth. I could barely make out Elsa from under the pile of undead creatures that were mangling me, but before my vision went black I could make out her screaming with tears in her eyes. With that image burnt into my mind, everything dissolved into pain and everything blurred to black. It was a weird…floaty…feeling…

"No, please. Please don't. I-no please."

"It's… okay…" a chocked cough. Blood splattering on the ground. "You're…safe. That's what's important."

"No, no." Heart racing, pulse pounding. Her pulse fading. Getting colder every second. "You-you're going to be fine. It's going to be fine."

A smile. Her hand raises to a tear-stained cheek. Blood mixes with tears. "Yeah…it is. Hey, what… what's with that look?" A smile and shivering. "Hey… I'm getting cold. Y-your hugs are warm. Can I… Can I have one last one?" Shaking arms wrap too tightly around the withering frame. "Thank you… You really must be an angel…"

Her breath slows. "Hey… hey stay…stay with me. No. No please. Stay with me! Els-"

"Elsa!" I wheezed as my eyes jerked open. I could still see the pale blue tunic splattered with crimson and feel the touch of dying skin on my hands. My breaths were erratic, each a gasp muted by the hoarseness of my throat. A hand stroked my cheek, wiping off a tear that I hadn't noticed.

I turned my head to face her, also realizing that my head was on her soft lap. She looked down to me, an expression of relief tinged with a bit of pain. Elsa bit her lip before making a tentative smile.

"Hey." She whispered. I opened my mouth to speak until I realized that no sound was coming out. Elsa ran a gentle hand down my arm. I shook at the touch. It was cold, but there was a pulse. I looked at her eyes, cerulean orbs filled with concern and… fear? Why would she be afrai-

"Shit, vampires!" I exclaimed, struggling to sit up. What the hell happened anyway? I remember fangs. Pain. Fangy Pain. I don't know, but Elsa was struggling to keep me from getting up.

"Anna! Anna, no, it's okay!" She cried out, keeping me from breaking out some serious violence. "They're gone. The survivors retreated."

I held onto her arm, breathing as the words sunk in. "So… you're safe?" I asked. She nodded and I practically threw myself onto her. "Oh thank God. I was so… God."

She hugged me back and I could hear slight sniffling. "Yes… All thanks to you Anna."

I snorted as I rested my head on her shoulder. "Yes, well getting mauled always tends to scare off my enemies. So…" I chewed my lip and scratched at my head. "Thanks for saving me."

She stiffened and pushed me away. "What- Anna, are you- you don't remember?"

Eh? "Well I don't want to remember more of the biting, but no, that's the only thing I remember. I was being eaten and now I'm not. Did..something happen?"

"Yes, you… something did." Elsa swallowed and motioned to my hands. I haven't looked at them yet, so I guess she wanted me to clean up the blood or someth-

"Well… shit." I muttered. My left hand looked normal, maybe a bit pinker than usual. It still throbbed with the strain of a freshly healed wound. The other had a red tint, but I think that was because of the blood. It was ash gray from the elbow down. Pulsing red veins trailed down my forearm, radiating heat like cracks in a volcano. I followed a sliver of fire down my arm as it coiled around my forearm, wrapped around my wrist and snaked its way to my clawed fingers. I grabbed at my arm, hissing as the heat seared my hand. Breathing deeply I focused my aether on my arm, hoping that it would work. Slowly but surely the color returned to my flesh and my nails retracted to normal proportions. I took my other hand off and shook it as the burning sensation started to fade. The whole time Elsa just sat across from me, watching without comment.

I fumbled with my words, tripping over myself until she opened her mouth. "What was that?" she asked, voice betraying only the slightest hint of fear. "I… I'm incredibly grateful that you saved me Anna, but you need to explain."

"I'm not sure what you mea-"

"Anna that was demon fire!" She yelled before clasping her hands over her mouth. She lowered them and cleared her throat. "I… sorry, but. Please, check… one of the bodies near you. You… tore it up while you were in that 'state'."

I swallowed and turned to the smell of burning flesh and cotton. It looked like it used to be a person. I mean, it's missing a few parts that a person usually has. Something like arms, legs and… most of a face. Across its chest were three lines of flame, stemming from deep gashes across the victim's chest. They burned and showed no sign of stopping, seemingly feeding off itself to stay alive. I reached my hand towards it and felt the distinct aura of malicious energy. A quiet thump in my chest reacted to the fumes that came off the corpse. I didn't have to check the limb stumps to tell that they were in the same condition.

"Elsa…" I started as I turned to her. She looked down at her hands, a dozen unspoken questions on her face. "Hey, um. I… I can explain. Later, just. Now's not the, shit how do I-"

"When were you going to tell me?" she said quietly, hardly more than a whisper.

"Tell you what?" I asked.

"Tell me that you could do that. Anna…" She was biting her lip now and I could almost see blood leaking. "Anna, how long have you been a demon?"

I snapped back like I had been struck. "What, I'm not a demon!" I said, perhaps a bit too loudly.

"Then explain that! Yes you were able to use fire before, but that? That wasn't normal Anna. I don't want to question you either, but." Her breath hitched as she looked away from me. "I have my orders."

"Hey, Elsa. Elsa no, listen to me. I am not a demon. And I am sure as hell not the guy you were sent down here to deal with." She didn't face me, only holding herself tighter. "Elsa, please believe me. I'm not, I swear. I was going to explain, but it… it hasn't happened in a long time." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "It hasn't happened since the time I fell. It's been so long that I figured it must have gone away or something."

She looked to me skeptically before I raised my hands in surrender. "Honestly Elsa. It… it was some sort of self-defense mechanism. The first time it happened, I was under enough stress that my body changed on its own. Apparently almost dying was enough for that part of me to come back out and save my ass."

Elsa cocked her head at me, obviously not convinced by my explanation. "This…isn't the first time that this happened?"

"No, and I don't like thinking about the first time that it happened either." I said, grumbling to myself.

"What happened?" She asked, lowering her hands and her guard a bit.

"I… I don't want to get too far into details okay." I said, shaking off the images that were threatening to swarm into my brain. "Someone I…really cared about died. It snapped something in me and I turned into…that thing you saw. And it was different this time since I don't even remember turning into anything. It's the first time anything has almost managed to kill me in years, so I guess it was some sort of failsafe or something. There. Good enough for you?"

I realized I almost spat those last words out a bit too late. Elsa looked like I had slapped her. "I didn't realize." She said, completely crestfallen. "I had no idea… Anna, I-"

"Wait, no." I said, shaking my head at myself. "Look, it… it's my fault okay. I should've told you about that a while ago, okay? I'm sorry." I scooted over to her, holding out my hand. She leaned over and onto my shoulder.

"Okay. I… I am sorry that I accused you of being an archfiend."

I snorted and patted her on the back. "Please, Kristoph's probably called me worse. I'm sorry that I went all demony on you without giving you any warning."

She laughed and gave me a quick hug that lasted far too short. "Do not trouble yourself. Now, um. Can we continue our journey instead of sitting here in the middle of a pile of corpses?"

Oh yeah. I smiled and stood up, holding my hand out. She hesitated for a moment before taking my hand. I tugged and pulled her up and we stood there, face to face but unable to make eye contact.

"So, uh yeah." The tense atmosphere was making me wish I actually died back there. "Is there anything else I missed while I was unconscious?"

"Oh, um. Yes. After you… 'dispatched' a sizable chunk of them, the rest of the creatures just flopped to the ground. None of them have moved since."

I hummed and looked down at the fallen limb of someone I dismembered. Picking the first arm I could find I lifted it to take a better look. The arm was pale, paler than a dead body should've been if I had just incinerated it. The skin had an ivory complexion to it, feeling cold and plastic to the touch. It was stiff as well, as if rigor mortis has had plenty of time to stick. I checked the hand, seeing the black nails that protruded into sharp points, the tips dripping with blood. Curiously, I pricked my thumb against one of the dry tips. It came off blood red and dripped onto the ground.

"Hey, Elsa." I call out to my partner who was crouching behind some sad dead college kid. She looked over to me at my call. "Can you take a look at this? Sense any magic that's not on fire?"

She walked over and looked over the arm with only a little disgust. Quietly, she closed her eyes and held her hands over the arm. It danced with light blue light, swirling between her fingers and the, uh… fingers. The light jarringly turned to black and Elsa drew her hands back immediately.

"I was afraid to analyze any of the corpses because of your work on them." I honestly had forgotten that the arm's stump was currently on fire. I tried to half-heartedly put out the flames, but I gave up to listen to Elsa. "But yes, there is something truly…evil inside of there."

"Do you mean still inside, or are we talking used to be inside?"

Elsa bit her lip and walked over to the torso. She held her palm over this one and immediately retracted it. "Yes, still inside. Something…restless and evil. It's… struggling to be free I think."

I pouted, pulled Marshmallow out of my cloak and fired a shot directly into the torso. Elsa jumped back at the sudden noise. "Well, is it dead now?" I asked.

She looked at me, slightly red in the face before she shook her head. "No, it's not a matter of the physical flesh dying. It felt like… like something was bonded to the flesh. It was using the body as a vessel, and seeing as you had previously destroyed most of it, the creature is trapped inside."

I nodded and turned to the other bodies left behind. I walked over and crouched next to a baby-faced kid, probably in his early twenties. I twisted his arm a bit, and it was just as stiff and pale as the others I had seen, maybe even a little more. The fingers on the other hand were just as normal as the hand. It even had his nails cut short. No matter how hard I tried to scratch myself with it, it couldn't do anything resembling damage.

Elsa walked up next to me as I stood up. "I already checked a few of these. They have residue, but none of the actual creatures inside of them. They're just…bodies."

"So, we're dealing with powerful spirit creatures that possess dead bodies and use said bodies to feast on not quite dead bodies."

"That is an accurate summation."

"I liked it better when I was just dealing with undead monsters that used to be townspeople."

Elsa gave me a soft smile. "Don't tell me you're scared."

I smirked and waved her off. "Nope, I just like my fights simple. Come on, let's see if we can find anything similar to a boss battle."

"A what?"

I laughed and patted her on the back. "I'll teach you about video games later. Come on, let's not wait around for something else to jump us."

Our search led us to a tall ware-house looking building. It loomed over us, looking creepily normal. It was spotless. The bricks were perfectly aligned, edge aligned with edge throughout the whole wall. The windows were evenly spaced out, silver shutters keeping the inside closed from the outside. Two windows, evenly spaced apart and right in the middle of the building with a plain steel door in the center. No mold signs, dust residue or cracked windows. It was an immaculate building, which tipped me off before Elsa did her magic sensing thing.

"People don't treat their own houses this well." I said as Elsa checked for traps. She said something about not wanting me to vaporize my arm again or something. I told her that it happened only slightly more often than she thought it did. "If we're going to find whatever is behind all this, we're best off checking this place out."

Elsa stood up and made her way to me. "True. They also apparently did not expect anyone to make it this far. There is not a trace of the magic we found earlier at all. Though…" She paused, putting a finger to her lips. "It does appear that there is some sort of aether residue extruding from the building. Though…"

"Is there something bothering you?"

"The residue was…familiar. I think it felt like that boy we met earlier."

I kept a hand ready at my side. "You think there's some of them in the building?"

"Most definitely, but that's not it. The boy's aura… it was like this before he was killed and possessed."

So there was definitely some weird magic going on. I looked on the suspiciously unsuspicious building and let out a sigh. "Well, if that's the case, I'm going in."

Elsa nodded. "We can't make any progress just standing out here."

Smiling I walked over and grasped the door-handle, turning it gently as I pulled. The door squeaked open, leading into a dimly lit hallway. I waited to see if anything wanted to greet us, and failing to find anything I motioned for us to move inside. Elsa made a cute 'after you' motion and I stepped inside.

It was too normal inside. As we walked through the hallway, barely illuminated by the ceiling lights that swayed lightly in the breeze, I let my eyes wander. There were plants that looked good despite being thirty years old. Little certificates in frames dotted the walls at periodic intervals. The inside was quiet and quaint and it gave me the same weird feeling as outside.

It got worse once I realized that I've seen the same potted plant maybe fifty times in a row. I stopped in my tracks near a door that looked like the others as Elsa cleared her throat.

"I believe that now would be the time to apply one of your less 'conventional' solutions." She said.

I blew at one of my braids. "You make it sound like the first thing I do in a new situation is something incredibly stupid."

"Am I incorrect in saying that?"

I smirked. "Nope. Let's get out of this hallway then." Walking down I grabbed at the door which I suppose has always been the only one in the place. Twisting the knob I threw it open, only to be met by a large gust of wind and an assaulting barrage of color. It was like a portal to a Dahli painting based on office equipment. The plant I saw had about a hundred siblings and all of them seemed to be cut in half or torn in some weird but clean angle. The doors were only halfway connected to themselves, the frames not matching up at all, some not even touching to begin with. The colors were twisted everywhere and everything seemed to be in a haze.

"I'm starting to think that this was a huge mistake." I muttered as I stepped through the frame. Elsa only shuddered a bit before walking in beside me. We walked through the hallway, weapons at the ready. Every step was met with a resounding echo and the faintest bit of laughter. I squeezed the grip on my guns a bit hard, but I continued to press forward. Elsa was preoccupying herself with a mental scan of this place.

"It's like a storm here." She said. Her voice echoed too far after her. "I try to breathe in the energy here, but it feels like it is constantly changing. It is almost as if this area is trying to re-assemble itself but is constantly failing."

"You make it sound like it's alive." I said, scanning the walls as they shifted from red to purple then some shade of green I had never seen before.

"Not alive… It's just not supposed to exist. Something has tampered with the structure of this place to a degree that the building itself is attempting to undo the damage. Nothing on Earth can do this."

I looked at the swirling patterns that darted over the broken frames and plants. "Are you implying what I think you are?"

Elsa pressed her hand against the wall. She closed her eyes in concentration, a blue aura appearing around her hand. She bit her lip in concentration, struggling to keep the aura safe from the black tendrils swirling around it. Suddenly the dark veins swarmed together and thrust to her hand, forcing her to pull back. She recoiled, looking like a kid who just touched a stove. "It is definitely the work of a powerful demon."

Magic always left behind a trace of whoever used it. To those without the ability, there is hardly a difference, but spiritual beings can identify magic traces to almost complete accuracy. From what I learned, it came down to how the magic itself behaved. Human magic had a tendency to glow. It was small, weak but incredibly volatile. Angel magic was like looking at the sun. You would look at it in awe before it started to burn. But if you were careful, it was warm and comforting.

Demon magic was what happened when you didn't stop looking at the sun. It slowly burned your eyes, causing extreme pain as your retinas started to boil. But you couldn't look away as it would snake through your system, filling your entire being. Eventually there would be nothing left of anything touched by demons. They could never create, only destroy and they were incredibly good at doing it.

Elsa waved her slightly smoking hand as she looked to me. "I am sorry. I attempted to find out more about the structures here, but it appears that the building had other ideas."

"It's fine." I said, moving my hand over her injured one. She took mine like it was a reflex. "We'll just have to be careful about where we go."

"Yes, but. I did manage to feel something before the energy forced me away. There was… there is someone here."

"Someone like a big scary demon dude?"

She started to nod but shook her head. "No, I mean. I saw them, but I could not get a proper feel for them. I mean I sensed something else in here." She looked me in the eye as she exhaled. "Someone else is inside the building."

A/N: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Years and everything else in between. I hope that all of you are having a great winter. I'm typing this from my new laptop who has seen much use since I acquired it a few weeks ago before finals. I'm already putting it hard to work on the next chapter as we speak, so let's pray I find some sort of rhythm to all this.

Now for some other news, I recently discovered archive of our own. For those who don't know, it's another website to post fanfiction for a multitude of fandoms and such. I personally think it's easier to read and easier to search for things, as such I am going to post this to ao3 as well as here. That way anybody who's more comfortable there can read there instead. I guess it's like a weird Christmas present from me to you guys. The link will be in my profile, so check it out when you can.

As always thank you so much for reading and I hope that you guys have had a wonderful holiday season. And if you haven't, I hope that you manage to have some relaxation time because you deserve it. And as always leave a review, subscribe, tell your friends. Whatever you guys want. I'll see you next chapter.