The Scorpion of Shan'Gai Chah [closed]

[Twinflame]

K'ile's ears pitched back as a familiar figure burst from the darkness. He saw a Woodwailer's mask, but he would know those ears, that smell anywhere. "You!? What the fu-" He snarled, and did not hesitate. The action came more naturally in the face of this interloper than if an Amal'jaa had jumped out of the shadows at him. Aether fired from K'ile's chest into the metal rod, making it glow with heat, and he thrust it past the oncoming spike of his assailant, trying to strike a mortal blow. He turned one of his large, armored shoulder plates to take the blow of the spike.

[Naunet]

Blue eyes flashed wide behind the mask as K'ile Tia's form came into focus. It was far too late for Thal to adjust his approach though, as his legs launched him up and forward in a leap he hadn't known himself previously capable of. He had just enough time to alter the angle of his weapon, in a hurried reaction to the flash of red-hot metal thrust forward by the other miqo'te, and as he fell down upon the Tia he sought to deflect the spiked end safely past him. The sound of metal colliding with superheated metal echoed in the stiflingly hot sanctum.

[Twinflame]

Rolling to one side, K'ile cursed in anger. The motion and the clash made his brain throb against his skull case, the base of his ears burning, but he ignored it. Anger and fury stirred in his gut as he rolled to his feet. "What are you doing? Did you follow me here?"

[Naunet]

Thal hit the ground with a thud and sprang back upright almost immediately, bouncing back away from the Tia to put some sizeable distance between them. The mask bore no expression, hiding the shock on his face, but his voice communicated it clearly, along with a sharp note of confusion and some hurt, "I should ask you that! What, are you so bent on killing me again that you join up with beastmen and ask one of them to hunt me down? And--what the hell are you doing here? I thought you were gonna be an Amal'jaa!"

[Twinflame]

"This isn't about you. Of course you wouldn't think about that." K'ile turned his lance in his hand, the thing still glowing red with heat. He scowled, his ears laying flat on his head, and growled. "So instead of killing you, Baoht sent you in here to kill me? I wouldn't have expected an Amal'jaa to send an undead man against me. Why are you doing what he says?"

[Naunet]

Thal grimaced behind the mask and shifted his feet in the hot sand. "Big bad Amal'jaa kind of hands you your ass... yeah, you'd agree to help him solve a problem if it meant he'd leave you and yours alone, too." He let out a groan of frustration, tail swishing broadly behind him, and reached up to pull on one ear furiously. "This is ridiculous..."

[Twinflame]

"Ridiculous? How can you get killed and still not learn to take things seriously." K'ile growled and brushed hair out of his eyes, trying not to let himself get pulled into the same old argument he'd left behind years ago. "Listen. I'm Shan'Gai Chah, and I'm supposed to be getting tempered by Ifrit right about now. Even if I decide to handle you myself, there's still going to be a dozen Amal'jaa in this room looking for me, finding you, any minute now. So if you're going to do what that jerk Baoht said and take care of me, you'd better get started. Because whether you try to kill me or not," he hefted his spear. "I'm sure as heck not letting you leave."

[Naunet]

"I don't want to kill you," Thal muttered, eyeing K'ile's weapon warily but not immediately doing anything about it. His ears shifted back and he made an unhappy face behind the mask. "You seemed so concerned about your family the last time we met. And now you're here getting... tempered? Yeah, that'll definitely help your family. Enslave yourself to a primal."

[Twinflame]

"Hey, you don't know what I'm doing. You've got no idea." K'ile snapped at the man, glaring. He had no reason to be in a hurry. "The tribe is dying, and I'm going to do something about that. You think Azeyma's going to help us? She guided us out of the desert into land owned by Ul'dahns. Turns out her fire isn't very strong. Do you see the Amal'jaa abandoning the Sagolii? They're conquering it. Ifrit doesn't care if his followers are Amal'jaa or Miqo'te. Just that they're strong, and the tribe is stronger than any of these beastmen."

[Naunet]

Thal scoffed at that, scuffing one bare foot against the arid ground. He gestured roughly with the metal barb. "You ever take a look at all the tempered you've surrounded yourself with? I've seen the tempered Sylph in the Shroud, the Ixal - they're all the same. They're slaves. They only care about serving their primal. Family? It's nothing to them. I may not know that family of yours anymore, but I sure as hell care enough to call you out on leading them to that kind of fate. It's enough to make me wish I could go back to them, to protect them from you."

[Twinflame]

K'ile chuckled bitterly at that. "Oh, you finally thought long enough to string more than one idea into an argument. Listen." The Tia slapped his chest twice and heat radiated visibly along the metal buckles of his armor. "The tribe is strong, but they're too caught up in what they lost or what they don't want to lose. They're focused on things that don't exist anymore. If we all start worshiping Ifrit, at least then we're doing something. It'll be better. And the amal'jaa? They're like us. They respect heritage, strength, ritual. It makes sense."

[Naunet]

"Insane," Thal muttered. "You're insane. You're just gonna doom them to slavery beneath the Amal'jaa and beneath Ifrit. If you think they'll be treated any different than the other miqo'te in this place..." He shook his head roughly, ears shifting unhappily. "Damnit, I don't want to kill you."

[Twinflame]

The Tia shrugged, smirking. The heat that had flowed from is chest shot through his spear and he thrust it towards the ground, impaling it the same way he might impale a sand drake. Heat shot through the ground towards where Thal was standing, causing fumes to pour up from beneath the ground, turning the sand to quartz and the stone to coals. The glowing red cracks in the walls and the nearby stone dais shone brightly.

[Naunet]

Thal tensed, his muscles reacting before his brain fully processed the searing heat charging towards him through the ground. A great lunge through him to one side, and he rolled twice before leaping back to his feet and whirling back towards the Tia. "Fine," he barked. "Just like last time - you're gonna lose again." And then he charged through the fumes, unhindered by the scalding hot air that would have burned the lungs of the living, and lept again for K'ile.

[Twinflame]

"The dead are meant to be burned. I won't make the mistake of burying you this time." K'ile ripped his spear free of the earth, and heat poured from the wound. A geyser of fumes from the flash-boiled stone blasted into the air between himself and Thal. He jumped backward, turned and ran, but only a few meters. He leaped up onto the dark stone, shadowed dais, the red lines roiling through it as he set foot on it. He kept his ears directed towards the dead man, however.

[Naunet]

Aether humming in his veins, Thal pumped his legs, launching himself through the wall of fumes without hesitation or reaction. He followed after K'ile, but jumped for a part of the dias some fulms to the side of K'ile rather than for the Tia himself. As he came down, he swung the black barb out like a bat towards the Tia.

[Twinflame]

Thal's weapon slammed against K'ile's spear, throwing sparks and heat into the air. The Tia winced at it, but forced himself to ignore his aching head and ears, the igneous stink of the caves already almost overpowering his senses. He focused on the visual, the undead man directly in front of him. K'ile struck the dais with the tip of his spear and it grew hot beneath them, the igneous stone softening and glowing as it began to melt. Small flames lit upon K'ile's boots, but the heat did not hurt his skin. He lifted the point of his spear and jammed it at Thal's midsection.

[Naunet]

The bottoms of his feet tingled, but Thal ignored the sensation. Steam and smoke and sulfuric fume made it difficult to see, but he caught K'ile's movement disturbing the clouds and jerked to one side. He swung his weapon again, this time towards the side opposite where K'ile held his weapon, aiming with the legth of the barb for the Tia's exposed ribs.

[Twinflame]

The dark metal spike hit K'ile's white armor with a stinging click, and the Tia freed one hand from his spear to knock the spike away. When his hand made contact with the metal of Thal's weapon, that metal lit up with sudden heat. He hadn't even thought about it; it had just happened. They stood on a platform glowing hot with heat, the red light refracted through the igneous fumes, each holding a red-hot weapon. K'ile's feet sank deeper into the melting dais and the soles of his boots began to burn away, so that he could feel the hot melting stone against the bottom of his feet. There was no pain. He smiled and stepped back to his grip on his spear once more.

[Naunet]

Anger and lingering aether fueling his strength, Thal grimaced behind the mask as he gripped his weapon now in both hands, across his chest, and dove forward. He collided with the Tia, knocking K'ile spear point to one side and driving his own red-hot weapon lengthwise against K'ile's chest. He wouldn't let up the pressure once he connected, seeking to drive the Tia off the dias.

[Twinflame]

K'ile made sure to fall down instead of backwards. It was easier with the thick, softening stone beginning to grip his feet. She slammed down in it, and though it gave way, his head hurt and his senses reeled. He tired to follow through with his thought and kick Thal off of him, using the much larger man's momentum against him. The dais was drooping beneath them, spreading out gradually across the lower floor.

[Naunet]

The orientation of K'ile, the dais, and the billowing smoke suddenly flipped and spun around him. He twisted, tail whipping out behind him, and stumbled mostly upright down the soft, crumbling dais. Blue eyes looked to his feet for just a moment before widening, and he leapt further away from the collapsing stone. Staggering to a halt back on the ground, he dropped to a crouch and glared towards K'ile.

[Twinflame]

Shan'Gai Chah rose in the fumes and the red heat, the molten dais swelling out beneath him the same as ichor might from a puncture wound, bubbling and pungent. His ears twitched flat against his head and his eyes glared narrow, the red-glowing spear off to his right. "Where did you leave D'aijeen? Once I'm done with you and Baoht, I'll send some Amal'jaa after her, too."

[Naunet]

A growl echoed in his tattered chest. The palms of his hands and feet felt numb, but that wasn't something he had time to think about now. Resecuring his grip on the dark barb, he crouched lower, shifting away from the sluggish flow of molten rock. He didn't like being forced into defense; his instincts told him getting the first - and last - hit in would be his only hope of beating K'ile Tia again, in this state. But for now, unless he wanted to risk melting his legs off, he had to hold back. He glared towards K'ile and didn't respond.

[Twinflame]

K'ile walked to the edge of the dais, the stone glowing hot and bending beneath his feet. Stepping down, he stabbed the ground with his spear, and it flashed, suddenly hot. The swath of the room Thal roiled and spat fumes, flicking hot. K'ile pushed himself forward with his spear so that he was charging Thal in a flash, pulling the glowing point of metal from the ground and lifting the opposite end towards Thal. If he could just impale the man, he could burn him away, and there would be nothing left to animate.