Prometheus

“Wow!” Jess came right up and wrapped her arms triumphantly around me as I landed in front of her and Yamin. She had a strong hug! “That was so totally awesome! You really live up to the legends, you know that? Like, seriously live up to them big time!”

“I appreciate the glazing…” I struggled to speak as she crushed my synthetic lungs. “But there's still a lot of work to be done… So please let me go!”

“Oh, right.” She released me and posed cutely with a 'Tee Hee.' Then decided to pat my Halloween dress to get some of the dust off.

I took a gasp of air to get myself back in the moment, and also re-expand my lungs back into their proper shape.

She hugs like Yamin’s mom…

“Jess, you did pretty good out there too.” I said with a seriously encouraging smile. She acted quick and helped me out, which meant she had a very good heart. “Your wind support magic really came in clutch.”

“You think so?” She poked her chin with a cocky little grin and bobbed from side to side all snide like. “I am pretty amazing like that, aren't I?”

“Don't get a swollen head now,” Yamin started as she re-joined our little group. “Keep talking like that and your hat might not fit right anymore.”

“My hat fits just fine, thank you very much…” Jess pulled the rim and tugged it down over her face. “See? Honestly, it might be a little too big, but I’m still growing and all.”

Since she had the current spotlight, I figured it was a good time to try and figure out exactly what she knew about the chaos sprouting around the city.

“Jess, forgive me for being blunt, but you seemed to know something about what’s going on.” I spoke up.

She sheepishly lifted part of her hat to look at me proper, but refused to hold eye contact for very long and let the hat cover her face again.

“I didn’t do anything…” she said, turning away from me, making it sound like I was pinning this travesty on her. "This isn't my fault."

“That’s not what I was saying,” I assured. “When you picked up one of those pumpkin seeds, you seemed to recognize those runes.”

Magical runes were extremely common, especially the elemental variety. These were obviously of the fire element, since they were hot orange and warm to the touch. But their particular design was unique-nothing like I’d ever seen. The word Hellenistic came to mind.

“If I could add something…” Yamin spoke up. “The runes on these seeds looked a lot like the marks you had when you used magic, Jess.”

Yamin had good eyes to pick out details like that, and she was right. No doubt Jess had some relation to this, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that she wasn't at fault.

“I told you, I didn’t do this…”

She retreated to a defensive state, clearly wanting to separate herself from the perpetrator of the incident. But I had to assure her that we weren’t going to blame her.

“I know you didn’t,” I said, trying to hold a soft smile while some uncomfortable feeling continually churned in my core. The weakness that was sapping my strength was getting far worse by the moment. “We can tell you don’t like this anymore than we do. If you tell us who’s responsible though, we can fix it for you.”

My words disarmed her stress a little, and she slowly peeked out from under her hat.

“Prometheus,” she squeaked.

“Is that who’s responsible?” I asked.

“I-I don’t know for sure…” she claimed. “I just know these runes are his, so he must be involved…”

I had no idea who this Prometheus was, but he sure had an intimidating name that put me on edge.

“So, would he have any reason to give random people superpowers?” I asked.

“Maybe… I don’t know,” she replied. “He’s not like the type to cause chaos. He’s nice and helped me before… Uh…” she stopped talking and turned red. “I’m sorry… I don’t really want to talk about that, if that’s okay.”

She had her barriers, and that was fine. I just needed a name and an idea of what he could do so I wouldn’t be blindsided.

“What’s his powers?” I asked.

“Fire,” she said. “He’s a powerful master over fire. Probably the best in the whole world. But, I know he wouldn’t do this…”

She didn’t seem like she was willing to tell me more than that. Either that, or she didn’t know more of his capabilities. That was fine. One of my best friends was an incredible fire mage, so I had some practice dealing with those hot headed types. If he was anything like her, combat wise or personality, I could handle it.

My wings parted the air and I lifted off the ground, prepared to fly toward the very center of the strange dark domain building over the city.

“Yalda, where are you going?” Yamin asked, tugging on my leg before I flew off.

“Satellite Industries,” I replied. “I think that Prometheus might be there.”

“How do you know?” Jess asked.

“Well, considering there’s a huge plume of blue flame standing on top of it like a creepy Christmas tree…” I chortled. “Seems like a safe bet to me.”

“Do you want us to help evacuate people?” Yamin suggested.

“If you could, yeah,” I replied. “I’ve sent out an alert to the Urnan guard and the church already. They’re moving people to bunkers under the park.”

If my strength wasn’t dwindling so quickly, I would have gone with to help everyone here before jumping to the final boss. But confronting him had to happen soon, or there wouldn’t be a drop of mana left in me to finish the fight, let alone start it.

“Alright.” Yamin nodded, grabbing hold of Jess’s hand. “You want to help me out?”

“I do!” Jess nodded with a stern look that blew away her prior ill-confidence. “Let’s help these people!”

With that, the group split off and I flew toward the tallest building in the city.

~🎃🔥🎃~

I had to resist the urge to fly down to the streets and deal with the chaos ensuing them. un-costumed people were panicked, funneled around and defended by guards in military uniforms and Larson 25 rifles. Meanwhile, costumed people were exploring strange powers that put them a cut above the rest. It was mainly children going wild, and if my knowledge of pop culture was up to date, they were getting whatever powers their costumes related to.

A baby girl dressed up like a teddy bear actually became a baby bear. Her mother was no less interested in cuddling with him. That was on the more docile end of things

But there was a guy in a trexus costume that stomped through the streets, causing terror, like a prehistoric monster of old brought to our modern day. The guards had to set up nets to catch him.

And I also spoted a dude in a red and blue spider looking costume was climbing walls and delivering pizza for some reason… Oh, that was Peter from the Pizza Parlor downtown!

“So something about the domain is giving trick or treaters powers based on their costumes…”

While it seemed to be giving the humans those quarks, I was feeling terrible pains and aches all over my body. My mana had dwindled to under half its full strength, so I wasn’t even sure I’d be any good in a battle if it came down to that.

“Hopefully this Prometheus is willing to compromise. Otherwise, I’ll have to poke him until he does.”

With a call to my weapon, I spawned the Spear of Destiny in all its solar crystal glory, then held it tightly, prepared to fight away whatever awaited me on that rooftop.

“Sssss…” Samael hissed with worry from my hair.

“I’m fine. We just need to deal with this and quick.”

The blue beacon of tall flame I was heading for burned brighter as flames of mana from all over the city collected around it. It was like a lanky pillar of plasma, with something hidden underneath. Anyone could have truly mistaken this for a demented Halloween effigy decoration, but I could sense it had grim power within.

As I approached, the blue flames seemed to part, exposing the slender pole-like humanoid shape with a large pumpkin head at the top they'd been concealing.

*BWOOOF!*

Fire burst around the pumpkin head, blazing out a face and turning it into a Jack-o-lantern. The fire inside its head moved around, vaguely creating pupils to express where it was looking. Sure enough, I was in its sights.

“Hey, your name Prometheus?” I folded my arms as I hovered midair. “Not to be rude, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave my city, Fire-guy… Like, ASAP.”

“Oh?” his head sparked with energy as he spoke in a reverberated tone. “Look who we have here.” He gestured to me as his body tilted to the side, glee spilling over his pumpkin expression. “It’s the Hallowed Angel herself I’ve heard so much about… How are you doing, Eighth Star?”

“I’d be doing a lot better if I didn’t have to look at your creepy melon mug. Now leave, before I decide to turn you into pumpkin pie.”

“Pumpkin pie?” his head tilted down, his eyes still looking at me. “Sounds delicious. Say, you wouldn’t consider me a cannibal for that statement, would you?”

I kneed him in the head and knocked that melon right off. His head rolled across the roof.

“Now, was that very nice?” he said, his head stopping upside down. His lanky hands explored the roof until reclaiming his head back. “I haven’t even introduced myself yet, and your already…!”

I kicked his head a little further away like a soccer ball.

“You know, I’m actually a very nice angel...” I said, my harrowing, merciless blue gaze looking down on him. “Normally I’d have blasted you to Judgment Day. But I’m sensing something interesting inside of you…” I picked up the pumpkin man’s head and held it close to me. “You’re part human, aren’t you? Corrupted by a deal with a demon I bet.”

“Gee, how could you tell?” his carved face grinchingly smiled as he spoke easy going words. “Hey, is that candy corn I smell in your breath?”

I tossed down his head to the gravel of this section of rooftop. His body tried to scramble to catch it, but I stomped on his thin core to hold him down and aimed the Spear of Destiny to his face, ready to skewer it to destroy the demonic energy possessing him.

“In the name of the Lord God, I’ll cleanse you of all your darkness.” I reeled back my spear, ready to thrust...

“How kind of you…” his spindly fingers lifted, posing rather eccentrically as if preparing to snap. “But first, let me give you a nice Halloween treat!”

There were seeds all over the roof, scattered around when I kicked his pumpkin head times. Those seeds all exploded into large vines that quickly entangled me in their grasp. I was lifted meters away from him.

“Rats!” I cursed as I powered up enough to break the vines held on me. More quickly encircled and held me tighter than the first batch, which easily overwhelmed my diminished power.

The pumpkin guy had plenty of time to escape back and collect his head, then place it in its place to become whole again.

“Like you guessed, the name’s Prometheus, kid. Along with adjusting his head straight, he put a hat on similar to the one Jess had, but smaller and black. A little ghastly blue flame whipped around at the tip. It made him look like a demonic scarecrow. “And today, I’m playing trick or treat with humanity. Got a little flame to give I think all of them will enjoy, including you.”

He once more snapped his spindly fingers and the churning in my core increased tenfold, along with my power level dropping to a mere shell of its former glory-practically non-existent. A flame spawned over my chest and phased into my heart. There was a burning and searing as the depths of my soul were forced to wind around that flame and mingle with it.

“You and all those humans seem to like playing pretend, yeah? Why else would you dress up like this once a year? Well I can take that play one step further.”

Suddenly I was released from the hold of the vines and dropped to my hands and knees. My spear cracked and shattered upon impact with the roof.

I clutched my crystal heart tightly, breathing uneasily as I gathered the might to face this foe once more.

“Why you…” I calmed my mood, letting go of the anger within. My eyes closed and I spiritually reached for the innermost power an Exceed could muster to bolster myself…

*PWOOF!*

Suddenly smoke burst out from me like a cloud in response. I coughed a few times until waving my arm to dispel the dust. Mighty gusts of air rushed as I flapped what felt like a large wing.

Why is my arm a wing now?

Finally I could see my whole body, or at least I could see a large plumage of chest feathers that prevented me from seeing my feet.

I wonder if this is how Adalyn feels when she looks down…

If that wasn’t enough to tip me off to something being wrong, my arms had been replaced by wings, and my feet were like that of a large crow.

“Oh heck no…” I grimaced, afraid of what my face must have looked like with these bird features. “I did not just transform into Big Bird, did I?”

Thankfully I didn’t have a long neck or yellow feathers. But I kinda looked like a Ch***bo from F***l F*****y if one let themself go. Needless to say, this was a big problem. And Prometheus was laughing it up like it was a comedy routine.