A second step, and Nexin shook his head. This wasn’t the Stormbearer, the heavy armor was red, not blue, and didn’t look like an archaic knight. Instead, wrist-thick tubes of some kind ran down the outside of the armor’s arms and legs, connected to odd mechanisms at the joints. The hilt he’d seen over the thing’s shoulder wasn’t a hilt at all, but instead another pipe of some kind, with a second matching one on the other side. Small jets of flame burst from each of the shoulder-pipes as the armored individual took another step forward.

  Stone crunched under its foot—testament to its incredible weight—and the full-plate helm lifted to look at Nexin. No eyes were visible through the slit on the helmet, replaced instead by a single bar of red like molten magma.

  “You… you…!” a deep, echoing voice spoke from the armor, then the thing launched forward, flames exploding from its back as if it had wings to flare.

  Weight and size aside, the thing moved fast, and Nexin darted to the side to narrowly avoid a haymaker punch that whistled through the air.

  WHAAAAAM, the thing hit a wall across the street—and went straight through it. Stone easily eight inches thick crumbled like wet paper, a series of crashes and slams echoing after the initial impact.

  Fast and strong.

  The flames in Nexin’s right hand spiraled back into his palm, then swarmed up his arm to expand into a shield, over and over, layering on the thickness. A shift of his feet brought the newly-formed shield up in front of him—though he could still see through it easily—and he raised his sword into the Sea of Snakes and Flames form. Movement scraped within the darkness where the armor had charged, then a head-sized stone rocketed out and straight for Nexin.

  He didn’t bother moving, the stone hitting his shield where it simultaneously shattered and melted to spread around him. Another scape, another ineffective stone destroyed on his shield.

  “I’ll give you one chance to explain what you’re doing here and why you attacked this city,” Nexin said loudly. The thing had spoken to him before, making dialogue an option. Whether it would take it or not…

  The armor barreled out of the hole in the wall, its arm cocking back with a quick clunk-clunk-clunk as it moved, and then it was right in front of Nexin. Like it was suspended a foot above the ground, it seemed to pause in the air, and then its waist twisted to bring its fist around. A high-pitched screech tore out of the arm at the same time the strange elbow-mechanism spat licks of flame, and the punch came around impossibly fast.

  Eyes locked on the molten-slit in the helmet, Nexin adjusted the angle of his shield a heartbeat before the blow struck it like a gong. WHAAAAAAAM, flames exploded at the impact, the ground under Nexin’s feet compressing and splitting in long cracks that spread a hundred feet behind him in a cone. Nearby windows that somehow survived the long winter shattered from the shockwave, doors were blown in, and the fallen rubble of the destroyed warehouse got sent flying.

  Nexin, however, hadn’t moved.

  “Quite the punch,” he said at the same time the armor’s feet landed on the ground in front of him. Back went its left arm, hand closing to a fist, with the same clunk-clunk-clunk echoing from within the elbow-mechanism.

  It could throw those kinds of punches consecutively? And the power behind it, along with the appearance, some kind of golem?

  Nexin tabled the questions for later—dialogue seemed to have broken down—and ignited flames at the bottoms of his feet. A single step, the world bending around him as he went, and suddenly, Nexin was behind the strange opponent as it swung its fist to hit nothing but air.

  The armor stumbled forward, overbalanced at missing, but Nexin didn’t strike out at its exposed back, another question demanding his attention. That step he’d just taken, a trick he’d taught himself years ago to get around quickly—why did it sound very much like the Vestish magic Sol had been talking about?

  The city around him vanished in a haze—not one of fog, but of memory—and Nexin was surrounded by the orphanage workers, again in white coats. He wasn’t on the staircase with El this time, but instead sitting in a room with stone walls. From each corner, a torch bathed the room in its light. No, not just torches—Embers.

  Lines along the floor lit up like a sunrise was flowing though them, circling where Nexin sat, moving closer and closer with every beat of his racing heart. Heat in the room built and built, sweat springing out from his skin, while pain exploded in his chest, his Spark…

  Movement and a clunk-clunk-clunk shattered the memory-illusion, snapping Nexin back to the present as the armor whirled and struck. His shield, still in front of him, shifted to block the blow, another gong-like impact ringing through the streets and wreaking havoc from the force of the collision. If the initial explosion in the warehouse hadn’t already destroyed most of the immediate area, their battle surely would.

  “You…!” the armor growled again, and Nexin darted back in a quick stutter-step that opened thirty feet between them.

  “You can obviously speak and think,” Nexin said. “Really, last chance. Talk to me now, before things start to hurt.”

  “You…! Pain…!” the armor said, and that same oppressive feeling of a stretching Spark Nexin had noticed earlier only grew worse. The joints of the armor began to glow to match the eye-slit, like molten magma ran inside it, and gouts of constant flame roared from the pipes on its back. Mechanisms on its shoulders and knees spat licks of fire, just like the ones on its elbows, and the air around its hands warped.

  Even thirty feet away and generally not bothered by heat, Nexin could feel the quickly escalating temperate of those fists. What fog had remained burnt off in a heartbeat in a series of pops like fireworks, the air clearing a block in every direction, and even the cobblestones at the armor’s feet bubbled.

  “PAIN!” the armor roared, and charged forward. Unlike before, it didn’t launch itself on a powerful, straight-line burst—Nexin had proven too quick for that, apparently—and instead came in swinging.

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  Clunk-clunk-clunk, the air didn’t just warp with the force and heat of the punch—it very nearly tore. The popping like fireworks sounded a staccato until fist met flaming shield, then WHAAAAAAM, and the area around them really did look like fireworks. Small explosions erupted out in a line from the point of impact, spreading to both sides of them as the shockwave superheated the air and melted the cobblestones beneath. Buildings on either side didn’t fare any better, the train of miniature suns punching through them like they weren’t even there.

  “Really quite the punch,” Nexin said, his voice swallowed by the chain-reaction occurring on either side of him. Directly in front of him, if a featureless plate helmet could look surprised, he was staring right at it. The armor stayed locked in place, a pressure where it was still pushing on Nexin’s shield, but it was obviously shocked he was still on his feet. That he hadn’t moved even an inch. “Now, let’s see how tough you are.”

  The world bent around Nexin as he took a step to the side, then lashed out with a series of lightning-fast thrusts to the armor’s side. Surprisingly—or maybe not—none of the strikes pierced through the thick plating, each only leaving a melted indentation half-an-inch deep.

  Whatever this thing was made of, it was strong. That wasn’t the end of Nexin’s tests, though, and he rotated around the armor at the same time it tried to move to follow him. Shifting from Sea of Snakes and Flames to From Sunrise to Sunset, Nexin slashed up then down, up then down, as he circled behind his opponent.

  The armor’s back was a complicated series of pipes covered in additional plating, almost like a backpack, and from the narrow glowing scars he left, it was even denser than the rest of the armor.

  Okay, attacking from behind isn’t the optimum angle. Next.

  Another punch swung around to try and catch Nexin, but his sword snaked out to slash once, twice in quick succession at the inside of the elbow joint. The punch faltered for a breath, but continued, though Nexin had already deftly stepped back.

  Joints look more vulnerable, but neither of those hits even left a mark. One more try.

  An ignition at his feet bent the buildings, the road, and even the sky above, all around him, and suddenly, Nexin was right beside the armor, its punching arm still extended. Ankle, knee, hip, waist, shoulder, and neck, his sword criss-crossed the armor in a blurring blaze before it even noticed he was there. Then, by that point, he’d already retreated to observe his handiwork.

  Once again, the joints filled with what looked like magma appeared completely undamaged. The mechanism at the knee joint, however, had a scar halfway deep into it, and the previously spitting flames had vanished.

  “PAIN…!” the echoing voice of the armor roared—raspier than it had been before—and it spun to extend an open palm in Nexin’s direction.

  What are you…?

  The air between them warped as a horizonal column of heat melted stone in a line straight towards him. A burst of power in his wings shot Nexin into the air, the focused bar of pure heat passing harmlessly by beneath him. Well, not harmlessly to the street or building behind him. The stone wall practically evaporated, melting to red, glowing liquid specked with black in a three-foot circle, then flames burst out of the hole as something inside the building caught fire.

  Possesses powerful ranged attacks, but why didn’t it use them earlier?

  The armor’s other hand lifted to point at Nexin, but a step took him out of the sky in front of the armor to gently set down on the ground behind it. Then, putting his hands together, the flames of his sword and shield crawled together and merged, before once again growing to form a two-handed warhammer.

  Slashing and piercing have proven mostly ineffective; time to try blunt-force trauma.

  The armor seemed to notice him at the same time Nexin swung—BAAAAM—the armor hurtled through the same hole it’d burned into the building. More flames erupted out of that hole from a collision inside, but Nexin’s opponent charged back out almost immediately. A beam of concentrated heat speared from its hand, though Nexin stepped around it and closed the distance, his hammer swinging down and low into the same knee he’d slashed before.

  The impact annihilated the already mangled device on the knee and swept the legs out from the armor, flipping it suddenly horizonal in the air. As if it teleported, Nexin’s hammer went from low to the ground to held above his head, and he smashed it straight down like he was pounding in a particularly stubborn nail. Forged of solid flame, the watermelon-sized hammerhead drove into the armor’s side hard enough to finally dent the metal before crushing the whole thing to the ground.

  Forty-feet around the point of impact cratered in a perfect circle, the street below Nexin dropping at least a foot as the ground couldn’t suffer the impact. Nearby walls tilted in his direction, and the shockwave completely snuffed out the fire in the nearby building. Despite the devastation, the armor that’d taken the brunt of the attack moved beneath him, one hand already reaching for him.

  Nexin stepped away as the predictable bar of heat sheared across the roof of a nearby house, setting the building alight.

  “Pa… aaaa… iiiin…!” the armor hissed. Its voice, like its throat, was crumpled parchment paper. The hand that speared heat in Nexin’s direction lowered to the ground—stone melting in a palm-shape around the point of contact—then the armor shifted to push itself up.

  Bludgeoning damage didn’t prove any more effective than cutting, so what about pure heat?

  Pulling the flames from the warhammer back to coat his hands like burning gloves, Nexin spread his fingers and put his wrists together, palms towards the armor. Fire danced in the open space within his grasp, but Nexin focused his attention outside of himself. Focused his will.

  For any member of the Firestorm, bending their Spark through an electrum focus was child’s play. Expected. Necessary. But Nexin wasn’t any member. He’d never needed an electrum focus to channel his Spark. And, more recently, he’d learned he didn’t even need himself to exert his power.

  Like flexing a muscle, Nexin pulled every ember, spark, and cinder of flame within five-hundred feet under his control. He tore the pure heat from the armor’s hands, stone solidifying around its gauntlet as the street cooled in an instant. Then, combined with the roaring inferno that was the Spark in his chest, Nexin brought it all together in the air a foot above the still-prone armor.

  A small, coin-sized sphere of fire appeared, so pure it was like looking at a miniature sun. Within the blink of an eye of its appearance, wind howled down the streets towards it, pulling heat from even further away to join, and swirling, swirling, swirling above the armor. Another blink and the outline of a tornado had appeared, licks of flames dancing in circles around the column reaching for the sky. Those licks quickly became a bonfire, the whole tornado igniting and releasing a deafening roar as it swallowed the armor.

  Five, ten, twenty seconds passed as Nexin fed the flames, the buildings around him standing unscathed as he continually pulled the heat away from them to cycle back into the tornado. The street at the base of it had long since melted, though everything within was hidden by the purity of the inferno, and Nexin nodded to himself. Enough.

  With an exertion of will, he turned his wrists ninety degrees, then began squeezing his hands closed, forcing the raging tornado to follow his desire. To condense. Within a second, the tornado that’d reached the sky was half that size, then a quarter a second later. Within five seconds, he’d reduced the pillar of flame to a churning dome that was easily twice as hot. One more push collapsed the dome with a POP that shook the ground like an earthquake before leaving a charred, circle of devastation in the middle of the street, the armor’s smoking form in the center of it.

  No, Nexin wasn’t just any member of the Firestorm, he was a Firestorm.