Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Aph's body briefly flickered with flames, scorching momentarily at the ropes that bound her as a grim smile spread across her face. Then in a moment the flames were extinguished as though blown out by a particularly harsh wind. Aph could feel something tugging at her, pulling her down the corridors somehow. Anyone who had been situated behind Aph would have seen her skin drifting away from her body, her very magical essence being sucked down the hallways. But Larus was busy scrabbling away through the building towards the succulent that was calling to him from the sap that swam through his blood. Aph, already feeling pretty angry, was frustrated further by her sudden inability to use her magic, if there was one thing she had come to depend on in this competition it was that when she got really angry it was there waiting for her, ready to be used to maim and kill. Annoyingly thus far it had not done either of those things. And if that wasn't bad enough there was this bizarre sensation of being pulled, all along her back. She turned around to see what was going on and after a second her essence began to be visibly pulled from her, down the hallways and straight into the vat room. Aph tried to gather her essence back to her, but her trailing hands only caused the essences to make unusual patterns as they dissipated away. Left without a choice Aph was dragged along the passageways inexorably towards the vat chamber.

Aegis watched as the weapon slammed against the thick glass of the vat and fell to the floor. The glass shattered slowly, as hairline fractures spread across the glass from where the weapon had impacted against it. As they spread they widened becoming cracks. In places the cracks became shards of glass and were thrown away from the vat which was only just holding on, magical energy shooting out through the cracks with bolts of lightning or plumes of flame. Alarms which had not rung in years sprung to life and the bank of monitors surrounding the vat began to blink red in alarm. Aegis decided it was not a good idea to hang around any longer, and attempting to shake off the exhaustion that had suddenly come over him stood up. He hurried as fast as he could, one hand against the wall for support as he dragged his sluggish body out of there.

As Aph was dragged down the corridors, her entire body now a blur of energy, she attempted to grab onto the walls, but her skin had practically turned to gas, offering no purchase anywhere. As she was dragged into the vat room she finally saw the cause of her problems, a huge tank of magical energy, mid-way through the process of collapsing, her streaming energies being pulled into it. She didn't even notice Aegis, slumped against the wall, his eyes closing. Ahead of her the vat finally shattered, sending shards of glass flying across the room, embedding them in the walls, chairs and finally silencing the bank of monitors that stretched around the room. In the middle of the room where the vat had just stood there was a kaleidoscopic cloud of magical energy, free from it's confines, just ready to explode. But suddenly it found itself earthed in another vessel, in Aph's rapidly reforming body. As the energy flowed into it's new vessel, some escaped, scorching the walls, or cracking further holes in the floor. The floor underneath the vat buckled as it collapsed into the floor below, causing the entire building to shake. Aph did not feel it though, her mind occupied by the familiar rush of absorbed energy.

This was what it had felt like when she had been created. The first thing she could remember was floating, over a hastily scrawled summoning circle in the middle of Xan's living room. While his place had, despite her best efforts, never been tidy, the chaos of that room on the day she had been created was almost a parallel to her current situation. There was even shattered glass scattered across the floor, though back then it was from a broken mirror rather than a smashed vat of energy. Xan had stood there, tome in hand, never quite noticing that a page had been unfortunately torn out. Aph remembered how when the energy had first stopped coming her first words she had ever uttered had been "I love you", and that Xan's first words he spoke to her had been "Wow I did it, you're really real". And that had pretty much summed up their relationship right until she killed him.

But in the here and now Aph fell to the floor, her body thrumming with energy, but at the same time painfully skewered with shards of glass. If her mind had been struggling before; lost in the fog of hatred, it was nothing compared to how out of control she felt, drowning in a sea of power. Flames burst throughout her body, burning away the ropes that bound her, and then dying back down at her command. She sat up, carefully taking her time in pulling the shards of glass from her body. As she did so a short burst of energy would escape, in a plume of flame, or a shard of ice, before her skin mended back together. She stood up, glancing around the now thoroughly destroyed room. Her eyes alighted upon the prone figure of Aegis, coming to against the wall and she grinned. Flames burst forth from her hand, forming themselves into the rough shape of her old blade, and slowly she advanced upon him.
"Wake up Aegis!" she whispered, a hint of madness in her voice. "You're going to miss all the fun!"