SYSTEM ASCENSION

”Right. I was in a fight. Let’s do that again.”

The first general didn’t wait for the fire to settle. He was the sort who attacked while others were still talking, and the great sword came around in a flat, brutal arc aimed at Tyler’s neck.

Tyler didn’t move.

The flames rose around him in a wall, and the blade struck it and stopped, the steel ringing like a bell. Heat poured down the metal until it glowed orange, and the first general let go with a hiss.

”Oh, that’s good,” Tyler said, and lifted one finger.

A column of fire burst beneath the first general’s feet. It threw him backward through the air, and he hit the ground hard enough to crater the earth, trailing smoke and glowing gravel.

”Back!” the second general barked, already moving, a blur of black cloth and a short blade drawn from nowhere. He came in low and fast, aiming for the tendons behind Tyler’s knee. The cut landed. Tyler felt it. He felt every bit of it, and he howled with laughter.

”Yes! There! Again!”

The blade came back, then again, a dozen strikes in the space of a breath, each one opening a line of red across Tyler’s thighs, his flank, his shoulder. And each wound spat flame instead of blood, so that the second general’s sleeve caught fire and he had to leap away, slapping at it.

”What is he?” the second general snarled.

”I guess he’s the heir of Salvador for a reason.” The first general was back on his feet, retrieving his sword with a rag wrapped around the grip. His face was grey. ”Together! Now!”

They came from both sides.

Tyler stood still and let them. He watched the great sword descend on his left and the short blade slide toward his ribs on his right, and he simply opened his arms. Fire rolled out from his chest in a tight spiral. The first general’s blade sheared through nothing but heat, and the second general’s dagger skidded off the burning haze around him.

”You two,” Tyler said happily, ”are the best thing that’s happened to me all week.”

The spiral flared. Both men were hurled apart, and the second general dropped to one knee, blood running from his scalp. But the first general only spat a tooth, roared, and swung again, a vicious overhead cut with everything behind it.

Tyler took it on the shoulder.

The sword bit deep. Fire sprayed from the wound. His knees bent, his smile stretched, and a sound like a kettle screaming came out of him that might have been joy.

”Hurts. It hurts. I love it.”

He turned his head and looked at the blade. The steel began to sag and drip like wax, running down toward the first general’s gloves. The first general tried to wrench it back, but he couldn’t.

Tyler exhaled, and a jet of flame crossed the space between them. It struck the first general square in the chest and sent him skidding on his back across the baked earth. Before he could stand up, he was set ablazed.

”One,” Tyler sang.

The second general had recovered. He watched the first general burn at a terrifying speed, screams and cries renting the air.

”You...use cloning right? What you did earlier.” Tyler muttered.

The screaming stopped. What was left of the first general crumpled into a black shape on the ground, and the fire kept eating at it anyway.

The second general didn’t look at it for long. He turned and ran.

”Hey,” Tyler called, tilting his head. ”Where are you going?”

He swept his arm outward, and a line of fire tore across the ground and raced ahead of the fleeing man, curving into a wall that rose twice his height. The second general skidded, spun, and threw himself sideways.

”Stay,” Tyler said, almost gently.

”Tsk!” He splitted into a dozen copies of him, all sprinting in different directions, across the plain, toward the ruined treeline, into the smoke.

Tyler laughed. ”I was right. Cloning.”

He didn’t pick one. He opened his palms and let the fire go wide.

It poured out of him in every direction at once, a spreading sheet that swallowed the grass, the stones, the dead. The copies reached it and burst one after another like candle flames pinched out.

The last few tried to leap over the sheet and were caught mid-air, wrapped in white fire, and gone before they hit the ground.

The real one had gone to the ground behind a boulder. He pressed his back against the stone, breathing in ragged breath. The rock was warming his spine. He could feel it. Then he could feel it too much.

He lurched out and ran.

”Over here!” Tyler skipped sideways through the flames, fire dripping from his fingers like water. ”Oh, you’re fast. Faster than your friend.”

A spear of flame punched into the ground at the second general’s heel. He yelped and swerved. Another landed ahead of him. Another to his left. Each one missed by a hand’s width, herding him, steering him like a dog driving a sheep.

”Stop! Stop it! I yield!” His voice cracked. ”I yield, I yield—”

Tyler paused. ”you yield?”

The man panted, watching as the fire receded. ”Your talent. It’s a waste here.”

Tyler tilted his head. ”Oh? Really?”

The man’s eyes sparkled. ”Join us. Let me take you back with me. You can rise to the height of a general.”

”Are you a general?”

”...yes.” The words felt bitter as he answered.

”...”

Tyler burst into laughter.

”I just fryed a general like it was nothing. You must be all talk—”

”Wait!” He continued. ”You can rise above the generals. You can make it into the elites or even the unknown.”

”That’s some insane power ranking.” Tyler raised his hand and the fire increased again.

”Elias did something like this when your people invaded Salvador several months ago.”

He snapped his finger, creating numerous fire swords.

”No! Wai—”

Tyler shot them all at him.

They all struck him. His clothes caught the flames.

”Shit!” His cloak was burning. He tore it off and threw it away, but the fire had found his sleeves, his collar, and the black cloth clinging to his back.

He screamed and dropped to the ground, rolling. It did nothing.

Tyler walked toward the man, ground melting beneath him . He stopped a few paces away and looked down at the writhing man with shining, delighted eyes.

”Don’t go yet,” he said. ”You were just getting good.”

He lifted his hand.

The fire on the second general’s body surged. It climbed his arms, his throat, his face, brighter and hotter, turning white at the edges, and the scream rose into something that no longer sounded like a voice. It went on for a long, terrible moment.

Then it stopped.

The second general lay still on the scorched earth, burning in the same slow, merciless way as the first, until nothing in the fire moved at all.

Tyler stood over them both, chest heaving, a wide grin stretched across his face.

”Two,” he whispered.

The flames danced around him, bright and loud. He shut his eyes, took a few deep breaths but the fire was still surging.

He opened his eyes again.

”Hah...I can’t stop.”