[u][b]Luke Schwarz--Friendly Fire[/b][/u]

He didn't have time to stick around and find out! Even as he had just looked up, a torrent of flame was barreling towards him, a wave of sheer heat blasting his face and drying everything out in fractions of a second. Why was there so much fire inside a building?! 

This place was gonna burn to the ground if something caught!

With every fiber of his being, he sprung to the side, narrowly avoiding an untimely, crispy end. 

Very narrowly.

[i]Too[/i] narrowly.

A tongue of flame managed to lick the sleeve of his near arm, and searing, stabbing pain lanced through his nervous system like lightning.

[i][b]"GAAAHHH!"[/b][/i]

He couldn't help it. Fire hurt terribly and constantly, even as it quickly began to eat through the sleeve of his hoodie and spread up the full length of his arm. In those moments, he forgot everything. The fight, his enemies, even how to land on his feet.

One of those things happened to be a blessing in disguise. Hitting the ground on his side, he tumbled into an inelegant barrel roll, smothering the fire to a degree. Not entirely, but enough to quickly regain his senses and tear the afflicted sleeve away, tossing it behind him and letting it die of its own accord.

It was right about then that his teammate began trying to bisect him with Byakko.

Letting out an inarticulate cry of fright and surprise (read: [i][b]"UWAAAH!"[/b][/i] ), he sidestepped again as he rose, awkwardly kicking at the weapon during its meteoric arc to try and knock it as far from him as possible. He needed to get out of here! At least, he needed to put enough distance between her and him to get his head [i]straight[/i]!

As straight as it could get with a charred arm, anyway...

Turning, running, and putting a good 25 or so feet between the two, he offered his arm a momentarily glance to asses the damage...

Red. Blistered. Bloody. Skin reduced to tatters. Splotches of leathery White. Wet. An arm suffering from the effects of deadly heat, and constantly stinging just from the air it was surrounded by. Already healing, but still in all sorts of trouble. And this arm was attached to him. 

His skin turned a deathly pale, and he truly learned the meaning of the phrase "butterflies in my stomach".

Breath coming in ragged gasps, he tried to shake it off as best he could as he looked up to the two forces of opposition still in his way.

[i]What can I do now?[/i]