Smoking Hot: The Diary of a Fire Demon

by Amy Mah

  “The use of Heat could slow the walls down from moving forward, but not for long.”

  “Of our capability, our main fighter is down. My light bending would only be able to hide myself for a very short time, and they know that trick and just turn the air icy to find me. It goes without saying my element attack abilities at my current age are useless.”

  “Normally they would have moved in and wiped us out by now. They clearly wanted to kill us while we slept, and as they would not care if a Light or Earth were awake or asleep, it is you two they are afraid of. For some reason that I can’t see, they believe you can hurt them, so they are using an underground pincer attack, which is normally something reserved for a team five times our size.”

  “Using all the facts I have at my disposal, if we go up against a slow pincer attack where they can take turns to rest and we cannot getting outside help, we will all be dead by the next sleep time.”

  Alaula still stared into the screen but now stopped talking, Pink patted her on the shoulder as she stood up and then looked directly at Alyce.

  “Your idea of having a Light on our team looks to have saved our lives. I honestly did not know why at the time, but now I see. Having a thinker means having a plan. Life is so simple when all we have to do is follow a plan. Here we all are playing your role-playing game, and I bet you did not think that I noticed the reason for your comment about stopping and helping some Earths out of kindness.”

  Alaula stopped looking at the screen and now turned a puzzled stare at Pink. It was true that Lights liked plans, but she had just carefully explained to everyone that she did not have one. Alyce was still held in Pink’s stare, and she could see sparks skipping between Pink’s horns as she again spoke.

  “They are afraid of us! Colds are mega dumb, always charging in without thinking, and as they have not then we worry them. All we now have to do is discover what they think we can do to them and then do it. In the meantime, we have the plan. If they are afraid of us now, wait until we show them our true colors and perhaps a little Cloud-based action of our own!”

  Smoking Hot: (27)

  Alaula had turned her lighting off, but the Ice walls stood out in the dark as they glowed pale blue in color. Alyce could replace Alaula’s pure light with flame, and outside their dent in the wall hiding place, two nice walls of Fire now crossed the corridor to give the effect that a defense was being prepared to meet the Ice moving towards them. Alyce knew that her Firewalls were just for show. They looked pretty partly due to Alaula’s illusion that the flames were billowing with energy, but she suspected even an Ice could walk through them without getting burned.

  The main thing that Alyce was doing was getting hot. She was a creature of Fire, so feeling hot was not a thing that worried her. She suspected it was a normal but uncontrollably Demon body thing, and the harmless feeling of getting hotter was to give a strong hint that subconsciously she was getting mad. It felt good that her body liked it and (no pun intended) gave her a warm feeling.

  She could heat stone, and with a hand to the ground that was what she was doing along with radiating as much heat as she could to warm the corridor up. This was also part of the plan; the heat would make the Firewall illusions look to be giving off lots of heat, and the heat would also help dissipate any Ice bolts they shot towards her.

  Alaula, on the other hand, was struggling at being brave. She was slowly making her way along the corridor, keeping her back flat to the wall to help the camouflage. She had almost dropped the team coin that Pink had given her that contained all the group points, and it was hard to do several things at once. She had to bend light around her to blend into the wall as well as project an illusion to boost the Firewall. She also knew that she would have to cancel the illusion soon, as she would have to use all she had to bend light about her to stay hidden when she reached the Ice wall. As soon as the flames died down, she suspected that would be the point when she would die.

  Between the curtains of flame, Alyce stood still and prepared to see if her 6th grade acting skills that had won her a prize for being an Indian Princess in a Thanksgiving play would work now she was a lot older and definitely a different species than the girl she had been then. Pink had released the mental command color hold on the uniforms, so Pink was now all in silver and Alyce in a deep red, plus she burnt out the black coloring Pink had added to hide the red in her hair. When the flame walls went down, the Ices would see a full-color Fire Demon center stage and hopefully not take much notice of how her tail was tightly wrapped around an Electric Demon’s tail as she knelt at her feet.

  Alyce could almost feel Pink’s excitement: no, not almost feel it. She could really feel it as it was coming to her via the most sensitive part of her body. Heat did not matter, but her tail was now becoming slightly numb from the discharges Pink was sending through her.

  Pink felt she could burst, and not just with excitement as her charge level reached maximum, and still she pushed her body to build it higher. She was sucking as much energy as she could from her friend. If they had the makings of a Storm Cloud, then transferring energy between members was a benefit that she would make full use of as she first drew out the energy and then returned it, using her friend as temporary storage.

  Behind the walls of Ice, the members of three Clouds mostly relaxed, as the operation outcome was a forgone conclusion. An underground pincher format could not be stopped. They were taking the wall creation duty in turns, but never less than five at a time held it in place. It reached from floor to ceiling with gaps at each side for movement around it, if they needed to fire Ice bolts. It was made as transparent as they could to see ahead.

  It was both shield and weapon, and its shape could change with a thought to go around corners or create holes to shoot through. Currently most Snowflakes were watching a wall of Fire in the middle of the corridor where the enemy hid. Most could not understand why their group commander was taking so much time over this kill. It was all standard and practiced many times. Create an Ice Storm between the two walls, lay down a barrage of Ice bolts, and slowly crush the enemy between two walls of Ice. They could do it with just two Clouds, and today they were a grouping of three.

  Then it happened; it should have happened all at once, but a small time delay made for a better theatre and a larger audience.

  The wall of Fire grew brighter until the flame turned from red to orange then into a bright white light. Then it vanished, but the darkness was complete as a figure now stood before them. The viewers could see the flame wall had turned into a burning figure, and it slowly got brighter as flames covered it.

  Standing there was a full-color Fire Demon; her uniform showed her to be a full-power top-level 4-year-old student. She was dripping Fire, and even her hair was ablaze. Behind the Ice walls, worried Cloud members now understood why their leader was taking such care. They had heard of the Academy’s single remaining Fire Demon, but most had not seen her, and none knew she had become so powerful.

  All attention was on Alyce, and she burned hot. Some overly enthusiastic Ices shot Ice bolts towards her, which dissipated long before they reached her. And when they did, she laughed and shouted out.

  “Do you think I care about your Cold? I have all the points I need, so just sit there and hide from me behind your puny walls until the exams end! You want to crush me? Are you as stupid as everyone says? Do you think I would even let them get that close?”

  With that Alyce sent a stream of Fire toward the wall where their Light was hiding, and as the Fire kissed the surface of the Ice wall it sparked and changed, glowing so bright that it dazzled all that watched. Alaula became visible from the effort of the special effects she was creating, but no one was looking in her direction. The brightness did not cover the sound, but the boom of Pink’s full discharge towards the wall and the sound of the exploding wall masked it.

  Ices quickly started to reform it, keeping a careful eye on the vision of their burning nemesis in case she tried to move towards the n
ow closing gap, but she only laughed. No one noticed a young Light Bender slip past them or the noise a coin made when it dropped to the ground before being speedily picked back up, and no one even heard the sound of swearing or the running feet.

  Under the cover of her friend’s warming Fire, Pink unlinked her tail from Alyce’s and crawled away back into the alcove to sit near Shale. It had felt good, but she was now so drained she could not stand. If only her sisters could have seen her; she had destroyed a three-Cloud wall! With just a single bolt, she had blasted it into little pieces that had not only evaporated but would have given all the wall holders such a headache that it would stop them from casting any more magic until after the exams.

  Seeing how weak Pink looked, Shale helped her to the back to rest for a little while. She knew that other races were weak due to their reliance on magic, so she did not think too badly of her. She personally had recovered from the beating she had received and was ready for action apart from one little problem. It was only a minor problem, and she was digging through backpacks looking for things to help create a splint for her leg. An Earth did not need long to recover, but having a broken leg limited her fighting positions to mostly ones that involved sitting or lying flat out. If only she could get ahold of one, or better still, two of these metal sticks the Ices had, that would be great.

  In the meantime, she had ripped apart the backpacks and was using the leather strips to tie a hammer and 12 fastening spikes tightly in place around her leg. The plan in action did not involve her, but hopefully some stupid group of Ices may get past Alyce, and that would then mean she would have at least one or two of their magic Cold Sticks to strap up her leg. The hammer was a help, but it was too short, and the claw head was already cutting an extra groove in her leg when she tried to walk.

  Alyce smiled; she was a star act with if not a captive audience at least one that feared to ever turn its back on her. She might even surpass the famous Indian Princess performance.

  The three Ice Clouds were currently under a single leader. It was not normal, but the joint leader was a powerful Icemaiden who had achieved her position by ruthlessly pushing all others aside, as all Clouds needed strong leadership. But if that leadership began to look less strong, the alliance could falter, and two of the Clouds would again separate.

  Icelyn was the name of the leader of the three Clouds, and she did not like setbacks or the idea of losing any power. The three Clouds were just a start, as she planned to have a much larger grouping of Clouds to make it possible to turn her into the leader of a Storm Cloud.

  She could not understand how this Heat had become so powerful or how she was able to even wake up after they had cast a Cold sleep at her. It should have worked; they had killed the other Heat that way. They had killed the one who called herself Ember by lowering her body temperature then hitting her with an Ice blast while she slept.

  Icelyn could feel the unease in her followers. A three Cloud wall should not have been destroyed so easily, but she had felt the heat that dissipated it, and it was real. With that power, if the Heat had wanted to, she could have just walked out of their trap at anytime she wished. The question was why she had not done so; the others in her team were different races, so it would not be because she was staying behind for them.

  For some reason the Heat was playing with them, and then the reason hit her. That bitch had even bragged at what she was doing; “I have all the points I need, so just sit there and hide from me behind your puny walls until the exams end!” The bitch was planning to stop them gaining anymore points by keeping them tied up here, and with 38 members they needed lots of points. Perhaps she did have all the points she needed, or maybe she didn’t and other teams would be paying her points to delay their team. The Fire’s team itself was odd as it was made up of a mixture of races.

  Then it all fell into place: a single, high-level Earth when normally all Earth worked in blocks of 10, and that one was one of the strongest they had come across. There had to be a reason why it was not with its own kind. They also had a Light with them, when the whole world knew there was no point in dragging one of those useless head-in-books clerks about on a team, as they just got in the way.

  Icelyn knew she was smart, and now she understood. She could clearly see that some of the races had gotten together to send out little mixed teams, and the payment was to give a strong member to make up a small but very strong group, hence having a useless Light just to make up the numbers. These teams would pretend to be trapped by Colds until the exams ended, where they would be paid points by the real teams they were in and not the pretend one like the one before them, which was nothing but one of many pointless decoys!

  Now that she knew this, she could take back the day. Her followers would be too stupid to understand why they needed to ignore this stupid sham of a group and leave, and she would lose prestige if she asked them to retreat, or get stuck here. Instead, she could do something the Heat would not expect; she would meet her face to face. She did not fear Fire, and her fighting skills were the best in the Academy; besides, she would bring support with her.

  Alyce began to wonder how long she could keep up an act of just standing there looking menacing before she would start to yawn. Acting like some Roman gladiator playing to the crowds was all well and good, but she had noticed she was now not so much standing looking like death on two legs and tail but instead was pacing and more likely looked like she was waiting for a train.

  She was even looking the wrong way and needed a “pssst” type sound from Shale to warn her to turn about as a small group of five appeared from behind the Ice wall when she was not looking and moved towards her. They were all dressed in the pure white of Icemaidens. The thought and slight hope that they were going to ask for peace talks vanished as soon as two of them raised long bluish Ice Sticks that Alyce had seen Ices carry in the past. Up close, they looked more like aluminum tubes about 3 feet in length; they only looked like Ice due to the frost covering them, and they were used to channel cold.

  She was correct about the Cold as an Ice blast hit her and would normally have hurt if she were not burning so hot. As it was, it felt like nothing more than perhaps an Aircon unit on full blast, and maybe if they kept it up for too long she could catch a cold or need to get a jumper, but apart from that she could just ignore it.

  The one in front now spoke.

  “Yes, we know that does not affect you; you can cancel it out the same way we can cancel your heat. It was not meant for you but as a warning to your cowardly team members of what will happen if they try and leave their tail hole of a hiding place. You so bore me with your acting tough and asking us to come and get you, so that is what we are doing. So crawl back up your tail hole or meet me and die!”

  Alyce found that her heart skipped a beat. A fight? They wanted her to fight? Since the group had formed, she had felt a little left out, but here she was pretending to be a mighty creature of Fire and they were asking if she wanted to fight: skip out on the magic stuff and get her hands dirty. They may not celebrate Christmas on this world, but for her, Santa had just arrived.

  Ignoring the very loud whispers coming from Shale to hold her ground and leave any fighting to her, with uncontrollable excitement Alyce knew she was leaking, this time it was not thoughts no the overall Fire she had for show vanished to be replaced by lots of little flames that were now dancing across her body, and her hair was a mass of flame.

  At last! she thought. I have something to do! Without taking her eyes off the group of Colds, her hand travelled to her leg until she felt the hilt of her blade. She could lose 100 points just for taking it out of its sheath, but those were points well spent as her fingers took hold. She thought to herself, let’s see how they like my girl commando style of blade fighting. The moment was spoiled when the magic blade let out a loud sigh, the same blade that had only made whoomping sounds in the past like it had watched far too many Star Wars movies had been able to make a sigh that sounded that it had been poli
shed with male hormones.

  She did not know if she could hear it in her mind or just feel its meaning, but her human side registered something definitely male, positively magical and with the mind and perverted personality of a teenage boy. She also had the feeling that it like her gripping it so tight and it was very happy for her to squeeze tighter with her strong fingers. Alyce made a mental note to clean her hands every time she touched the blade in the future.

  Alyce moved towards them to force any attack from behind to have to go past the remains of the party and hopefully a recharged Pink.

  Icelyn introduced herself as an Ice Princess and Tri-Cloud Domina, so Alyce gave her name as Alyce Fire Storm of the Death Cloud, as it sounded a lot better than princess, but then almost anything would sound better than being called an Ice Princess unless you liked watching Disney and wearing large lacy white frocks with lots of glitter.

  Alyce gripped the well-balanced magic blade. It sat comfortably in her hand. When she had been told it needed to be worn daily next to her skin, strapped to her thigh so as to bond with her, she thought it would mean she could fight with it better. Nowhere in her wildest nightmares would she have thought about it getting a crush on her. And as for it telling Shale that it liked looking up her kilt, well, now that meant she would have to find some nice, thick fireproof undies or a way of blindfolding a magic blade.

  The so-called Princess on acid was armed with a rod and a blade, and Alyce wondered if her opponent’s blade was magical. She started to worry about all weapons and had the sickening thought of the Icemaiden’s blade sighing and saying, “you are my princess” when they were alone or perhaps bursting into song.

  With a shake of her fiery locks of hair, Alyce tried to dismiss all thoughts of Disney cartoons. Besides, she had been the one who got the award for being a Native American princess, and she had even helped her mom make the costume!

  Alyce assumed the correct fighting position, and with a flick of her wrist made the blade give out its normal whoomp sound, proving it was either so sharp it could cut the air or it just liked to show off.