Ashes (Flame Ash Burned Backstory)

Chapter 22: Ariel

14th February 2010

Inside the Under-Realm castle, a little girl paced the large corridor outside of the throne room. Her mind ticked like a bomb waiting to go off. She was tired of waiting around and doing nothing.

Her electric blue hair matched her brother's, as did her blood-red eyes, and like her brother, she was manipulative. But unlike her brother, she would never mix with Fire People with the pretense of a relationship in order to secretly gather information.

No, she would never sink to that level. Not ever.

As much as her brother's tactics were useful, he was ultimately unsuccessful in his mission. Because he had been caught cheating. Because Miss Psycho, as the little girl now referred to her, overpowered him, aided by pure anger and fear for being hurt.

Emotions ruined a perfectly thought-out plan of attack.

But one thing that Blackout had been able to accomplish was creating a map of the Fire Kingdom.

She had been studying it ever since he had completed it, leaning shortcuts and blind-spots from all directions, and easy places to target. And though she found it vile that someone of her brother's position would go as far as to get into a relationship with a Fire Person, going so far as to kiss them on multiple occasions, she appreciated what he had done.

It meant that they were able to organize their ever-growing army properly.

And Blackout had been able to cause Miss Psycho to attempt to end her life. It was under unfortunate circumstances that the universe had allowed her to live, and no doubt the fault of her gender-swapped clone for getting her to the hospital as quickly as he did.

But if Miss Psycho had died, the Fire Kingdom's power would have been greatly reduced. That girl was a one-woman army: she had knocked the most vicious creature (Magma) flat on her ass in the space of less than ten minutes, when thousands of the Under-Realm army had fallen dead at her feet.

And if Miss Psycho had died in her hospital bed, Blackout would most certainly be alive.

So Flame was a huge threat if she, as a 12 year old at the time it happened, could beat Magma in a fight.

The weaponry of the Under-Realm was rather ancient. In a time where guns existed, they were stuck with swords, spears, bows and shields, even though the city was modern-looking. However, with the weaponry they had, and the magic that each of the Under-Realm citizens possessed, they were incredibly skilled.

The Under-Realm had kept themselves quiet ever since they were last defeated by Magma and Blaze, but conspired in secret to raise a powerful army. They had suspicions of Magma's plans to build an army powerful enough to wipe out the Under-Realm, but knew that they would have quite a while until her army was raised to her standards, and so intensely trained their own in order to take her and her kingdom down.

Once they had waited long enough, Blackout was given the task of finding his way inside the Fire Kingdom through any means possible. Their father, now growing old and forgetful, had only been able to remember the area around which the Fire Kingdom was based.