Silence followed.
Jorren looks at the devastation he has caused. He felt it, minds screaming at him, words questioning him. He had nothing to offer these souls.
But the tattoo on him hummed in a low tune, his soul in the warp greedily absorbing all that had been killed. It pulsed as more souls were pulled into it
"So that is how that works" he said as he noticed an increase in his psionic energy.
A warm current washed over him as his body relaxed. Drowned in the pleasure of rejuvenation and increase in volume.
'Very dangerous' he thought to himself
He moved on, to find a better way to deal with his problem. Not even looking back at the dead who have suffered this fate by his hands.
For the rest of the hive city, weeks go by yet nothing had changed, bodies lay where they had fallen. Weeks ago, by the look of them.
"Thermals?" Vale asked.
"Single spike ahead," the sensor tech replied.
"Human-sized. High heat variance." Captain Vale nodded.
"Alive?"
"…Yes. But unstable."
A scream came through the passage. One distinctly that of a child…but these men have heard such screams before and non took it for a child. They came upon the door as the captain readied his men.
"On me," he said quietly.
Bursting open the door, what lay before their eye was not some horror and a twisted human. No, it is a boy as young as 10 years old…but guns were raised almost immediately as they say him
"Hold" the captain shouted before the men could fire
They could see flames dancing around the boy, small but flames non the less.
"Sorry i didn't mean to" the boy raised his arms as he spotted the guns.
Fear visible in his eyes, and with it the tiny flames rose. They were no longer dancing, they were crawling to towards the men
"Sorry…sorry…sorry" the boy said as he cried out
"Warlock…" a trooper commented.
The soldiers got a chance to look at the room now. Other than the boy barefoot with his clothes scorched but not burning. A body lay nearby blackened from fire, yet still smoldering others behind it in the same condition.
"Please," he said.
"Make it stop."One of the troopers shifted.
"Untrained, have you reported your affliction boy?" Vale stepped forward slowly
"Listen to me. You need to calm down."
"I am trying!" the boy snapped as the fire surged in response into a pillar of flame that erupted from the floor beside him, before collapsing back.
"Focus your breathing and your mind, boy." the captain said in a deep commanding voice
"I can't…"The boy clenched his fists as flames burst outward in a ring.
The squad braced for impact, some already back into attack postures. Armor absorbing the worst of it yet the air itself seemed to ignite, burning without fuel.
"Contain it!" one trooper shouted taking aim and firing a shot at him. The slug collided with the flames in the air before melting into molten slag and falling onto the boys skin.
"Fall back" Vale said immediately noting the burn on the boy
The boy screamed once again in pain, this time directed. The flames pounce on the trooper who fired on him, they poured on him like liquid wrapping on his body. The flames consumed him in a matter of seconds.
The others were on edge, because the boy seemed to have calmed down. Though they carried a solemn look on their faces, possibly looking for any reason to attack and kill the boy for what he had done.
"No sudden movements" Vale instructed. The boy as he is, possessed a great threat to the group, and if he is triggered again, who knows who would survive.
"Look at me," Vale said "Name?" looking deeply into the boy's eyes as the flames settled down a little
"…Taren"
"Acceptable. Taren, you're not in danger right now. We're here to get you out."
"I killed them," Taren whispered, glancing at the bodies.
Vale didn't deny it."That doesn't have to happen again."
Taren's breathing slowed slightly
"That's it. Keep doing that."Behind him, one trooper relaxed too soon.
A floor panel cracked under his weight, the sudden sharp sound caused Taren to flinch. Next the result was obvious, everything ignited
"Clear the blast-radius!" Vale shouted towards his squad as they pulled away
Taren collapsed to his knees."I didn't mean…"
"I know," Vale said sharply
"Stay down and don't move."Taren obeyed as the flames rescinded once more
Captain Vale was becoming more agitated, the boy had killed one of his men and almost took a few more. He did not like the idea behind using witches and warlocks, but it was not his decision to make.
The guild leader of the Ziggly Mex is one of them, and has a high position within the cooperative.
They were walking through the corridor when the lights died and darkness swallowed everything.
"Activate thermal overlay," Vale ordered
The troopers raised their weapons to the ready position, looking around for any movement. Then Taren started to glow, the very heat elements in the air circled around him slightly. Psychic flames grew stronger as his heart rate shot up
"Keep moving, maximum dispersion. Overlapping fire-lanes only" Vale commanded
The walls began to breath, in and out, contracting and releasing as they passed. Taren began to heat up more, as he saw bodies layed across the floor. Some began to twitch…
"Do not engage unless…" one of the bodies shifted, Vale fired at it on reflex, dropping the body back into the pile of the dead.
"Advancing! Now!" with that command the men moved at greater speeds.
They were no longer walking and clearing they were running and occasionally clearing the space. One body burst in front of them into a mass of blue flames. The flames coalenced into 2 little imps scawling at the men
Taren lost it. "No," he whispered. "No no no…"
"Stay with me," Vale snapped.
"I can't…"
And with that the heat surged again. Bodies came to life as they pounced on the group. The spread had been good so they comfortably began to open fire on the reanimated corpses.
"Yeah…Yeah" the 2 imps shouted with glee in a high pitched screech.
Fire engulfed the corridore, with Vale and his men retreating to the back as the fire consumed the bodies and headed for the imps. They kept on laughing as if knowing something others did not, that is true…
The fires that Taren release only washed over them like a cool breeze on a warm summers day. But he was not done, with another scream, his power spurred out in greater columns, this time even causing his hair to sing, and his hands and feet to blister
The fire no longer targeted the enemy, instead it aimed to destroy everything around him.
Arghhh!!
The walls began to melt and the floor where he stood bubbled a bright orange and the metal flowed like water. Then a sound of footsteps came…echoing over the screams shouting and the sounds of flames crackling and molten iron.
A man walked into the sceen, the air above the 2 imps cracked to life as lightening screamed out of the air. Tearing it and producing molten fragment, plasma in the form of lightening struck the imps.
They could not even respond before their forms vanished into clouds of blue smoke, like the world itself relieved that a wrong had been corrected.
Vale and the troopers looked at the man with apprehension. This was not the typical warlock, he looked to the technician next to him…
"...Abnormal fluctuations in the readings sir…only occurs when value surpasses readers range" the technician said
Taren on the other hand could no longer think, his body was already halfway burnt black from the psychic fire. He could no longer stop it…
"...fall has not occurred yet" Jorren Nox whispered as he looked at the boy.
He let loose a little of his mind to stop the fire and save the boy from damnation. A child with this level of psychic power could be of use to him in the future. He could not be everywhere at once.
The fire stopped but it did not just stop it vanished, the flames were forcibly pushed back into the boy's body. And along with that his skiing healed back to what it onces was, except his hands and feet blackened from the burns
'That would have been such a waste, why would he follow if he were okay'
"You're wasting energy," Jorren said to Taren
"I…I can't control it."
"Control is a delusion of the weak," Jorren replied "You must learn not to react"
Glowing red line of flame on the boy's hand and feet began to recede
Vale stepped forward."This individual is under Guild protection…"Jorren ignored him.
"You will come with me," he said to Taren who hesitated
"Why?"
"Because you can be made useful…" Jorren said after much though.