There was silence in Quinn's head. Silence. Pure, dead, still, deafening silence.

Her body acted almost automatically, reforming her cannon from the beyond that it had been split into. All the roars, growls, grumbles, fell silent. The only thing that came from [i]Ablaze[/i] was the low, ragged breathing of an injured animal.

[i][color=silver]Quinnlash. Loughvein.[/color][/i]

It knew her name.

[i][color=silver]You.[/color][/i]

It spoke to her. That wasn't supposed to happen.

She watched herself almost in third person as she skated backwards, ripping trees and stones out beneath her heels as she did. The cannon kicked in her grasp as one—two—three shots engulfed the air in front of her in a conflagration of white fire.

The silence ached in her ears. 

[color=silver]I found you in Runa. I found you here.[/color]

It had come there looking—

It had come—

It—

The silence loomed. 

The mace blew through the fire and the Modir came after it, voice shaking the air around it as it swung in a heavy downwards smash that, should it have connected, would have crushed [i]Ablaze[/i]'s head with no resistance, and even less mercy.

And then the silence broke. And the world came rushing back. 

She dropped, whirled her leg out as she did so. The Modir, already scorched with glimmeering embers where it had run heedlessly through her salvo, leapt over it. Obviously it wouldn't be fooled by such a stupid trick, right? It brandished the mace again as it turned—

—And found itself facing a light like the sun.

Even as [i]Ablaze[/i] lay against the ground, its eye had incandesced, lighting up with pale fire as she phased, blurring—for that one barest moment—between halves. Her jagged mouth split. 

And then a horrible ragged thunder wrenched from her throat as the flame ignited again, a scouring, cleansing light that tore through the Modir like a knife parting paper. And when that light was just within the cavernous chest, as it began to shine through, there was an explosion that rocked the hills and sent whatever drones were left wheeling away out of sight and mind. 

The Modir [i]ruptured[/i], splitting apart like a rotten fruit. Steaming, boiling ichor splattered hundreds of feet in every direction, and the thing's ghastly face plummeted through the sky, cratering itself into the dirt near the crown of the nearby hill. The ruined wreckage of the Modir scattered, ash falling to the ground like snow all around her.

Dahlia was still fighting. A half-turn over the shoulder confirmed that. She should help her—

[color=silver]I found you in Runa. I found you here.[/color]

—But the thought of talking to her, facing her, suddenly made Quinn—not Ablaze, [i]Quinn[/i]—sick. Very, very sick.

She was so tired. Everything hurt so much. But the stream of frantic energy that ran through her now gave her enough strength to turn. To heft her cannon to her cheek.

[i]Keep everyone there safe.[/i]

And to keep. Pushing. Forward.

[i]To set the night [b][color=ffe63d]ablaze[/color].[/b][/i]