[CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220124/d9f1d8faa06cfe05abf125a557f8a9b3.png[/img][/CENTER] [color=gray][sub][right][color=white][b]Location:[/b][/color] Uhladein, Eastern Marches [/right][/sub][/color] [hr] Quinnlash leapt backwards, breaths coming fast heavy. The flames dropped from her hands and feet as she hopped up on a shattered-off piece of the tower, taking a moment to survey the fight. It was going...well? Or if not well, at least it was going predictably. The Void was encroaching, and normal humans were falling back and taking shelter. Whirls of blue flames and ice spat from the rooftops, alternately torching and freezing flying Void in its wake. It moved smoothly, quickly, as though gliding. That would be the Hunter with the spear and blue hair, she thought. The one that held herself like she was some kind of special. The one that looked at Quinnlash like she was [i]better[/i] than her or something. She twitched, and her lip curled up in a sneer. In front of her, the paltry remnants of a guard patrol ran from the army of Void goblins, and the enormous ogre-shadow at their head. Between the two of them was the little one, the small Hunter with the angry eyes. She [i]radiated[/i] heat, steam rising from her constantly as the rain poured down. Her claw-talons, the ones that Quinnlash had thought were inefficient weapons, were blazing white-hot. Perhaps not inefficient at all. But certainly painful. As she watched, the girl rushed to meet the mass of Void, shearing through them with ruthless savagery. She left molten footprints as she went, the stone itself yielding to the immense heat before the rain darkened it once more. Quinnlash snorted scornfully. [color=FFE63D][i]We've only got five and one's a Melter. Of course. Thanks, Maker.[/i][/color] She hadn't seen where the tall pink-haired Ldranti had gone, but from the horrifying sound of a Void creature being butchered and bellowing in pain coming from around the other side of the keep, she could probably guess. And, of course, along the top of the wall was the only Hunter here that she knew personally. As usual, her body was some degree of twisted, and the metal...meat...sword...[i]thing[/i] that twisted out of her arm gave Quinnlash a chill that few other things could. She'd had the...dubious pleasure of working with Fianna a few times. Midnosian Hunters both, after all. And every time. [i]Every time.[/i] It always ended up with her dying. Sometimes once or twice. Sometimes over and over. She growled deep in her throat, and her cannon growled with her. There was a grating shriek from above and she snapped her head skyward in alarm in time to see a blast of fire explode from a tower window. The Void had taken hatchlings from a roc, seemed like, and they dipped to strike at the pyromancers that tended the Hearthfire crystal. Their mother couldn't be far behind. As skilled a pyromancer as Galeil—it had to be him, she didn't respect any of the other idiots up there—seemed to be from that blast, the Void was far more than he could handle, or else the Hunters wouldn't be here. A half-forgotten memory of a voice whispered in the hidden recesses of her mind: [i]You are a pyromancer. Pyromancers like us are the final line, and have the final say. You must not shirk in your duty. You must not leave the fire. And you must not abandon your comrades. We are the final line. We have the final say. All of us.[/i] The phantom memory galled her, and she waved it away with a snarl and a swear, spitting foul-tasting Void blood and dry ash from her mouth in disgust. "[color=FFE63D]Fine! I'll go! Now fuck off![/color]" With a few deft steps, she bounded over broken chunks of masonry, bouncing across crumbling, rain-slicked fragments of stone towards the wall. Crazy or no, molten-hot or no, that girl wouldn't last long against a horde like that. She was a Melter, after all. Mostly cannon fodder. But the longer the cannon fodder lived, the easier the [i]real[/i] Hunters' job would be. She moved like a wildfire, burning without stopping through any Void in her way, until she topped a steep pile of rubble where she could have a moment to aim and unslung her cannon. She pressed it to her cheek, pointing towards the lone, white-clawed figure that blazed incandescent within the swelling Void sea. She had a [i]much[/i] better angle here. Wouldn't risk immolating the guards if she twitched. The world was lit with the cold white glare of lightning, and with an abrupt exhalation, she pulled the trigger. Another tremendous explosion burned through the night as she unleashed a blazing pyre upon the ogre, careful to catch the other Hunter out of the blast radius. Or at least only [i]slightly[/i] within it. The ravaging inferno consumed the enormous beast and anything even remotely near it in golden radiance. It certainly wouldn't die from that. It would take at [i]least[/i] two or three fully-charged shots to bring one of those to its knees, let alone kill it, and this was far from that level of power. She could tell it was in pain, though, and the burning goblins streaking through the air like little meteors brought a smile to her face. She gave a casual salute towards the girl. Least she had some breathing room for a couple seconds until more came to fill the gap. Thunder rolled in the distance, and just like that, the smile winked out. She couldn't spare the time to really enjoy it anyway, not before the anger flooded back. With a few more nimble leaps and some well-applied bursts of pyromancy, she topped the wall, staring out at the endless Void ocean. In the lull that followed the last crash of thunder—the comparative lull, at least, only the hissing of the rain and the horrifying sounds of the Void—she turned and shouted at Fianna with a sharp and [i]loud[/i] voice, another lightning-harsh sound accompanying another golden crack and another soul-deep pain as she reloaded. It took some doing, breaking the crazy woman out of her battle trances, but she was still the only Hunter here that Quinnlash was familiar with, and as much as she hated to admit it, the only one she could even moderately trust. At least as far as she knew. But that didn't hold if she couldn't even think. She needed her to listen and talk. Now. "[color=FFE63D]Hey! Freakshow![/color]" She kicked a fist-sized rock at her, smacking her in the back of the head. "[color=ffe63d]Snap the fuck out of it, dumbass! You—[/color]" She broke off, whirling a high kick at a Voidling that came scuttling up the wall. As it connected, a burst of flame surged out of her booted foot, launching the sickening creature back into the rest of its kind with a chittering scream. Three more followed and she gnashed her teeth. The enormous barrel of her cannon was suddenly wreathed in ethereal flames and she swept it back and forth like a warhammer, slamming it through their chitinous shells and sending them flying as her pyromancy consumed them. She glanced down and saw a swarm of the insectoid creatures skittering up the wall at her. Her cannon wasn't charged very much, but it was more than enough for this, and so she brought it to bear and it poured out a curtain of blazing light, knocking them from the stones. As the swarm collapsed, it let out a sound like ten thousand knives on ten thousand stones, and this time she [i]beamed[/i], throwing back her head in a laugh of absolute euphoria and letting the freezing rain dull the pain, if only a little, as it washed the ash and ichor from her face. When her joy abated, she huffed out another heavy breath and stood straight again, tossing her sodden braid behind her. She turned to Fianna, Undying Light resting on her shoulder and still leaking remnants of the pyromantic flare. The searing light flashed again on her chest as another soulflame nestled into the core of her cannon and began to swell as fast as she could grow it. In defiance of the rain, the familiar pain surged back stronger, carving its way through her whole body. Her eyes darted skyward at the boiling rainclouds overhead. Who knew how much time the pyromancers in the keep had left? "[color=FFE63D]You all up shit's creek down here, or can I head up?[/color]"