Wrath of the Empire

V. The Real Story Begins

~~~~~

It was at that point that Maddie and I were a little confused about what part of the story we would be telling next. By that, I actually meant that Maddie wanted me to go straight into the part where all the Rangers died, Land by Land, but I wanted to add a little more detail to the story first.

"What kind of detail would you even add?" Maddie asked me.

"How about the part where we actually saw Infernas, and the part where we saw that he had combined with the cores of dragons?"

Maddie saw my reason. "All right, I guess that that's a pretty important part of the story. But why can't we just skip that, mention it very slightly during the later parts, and just go straight to the part where everyone dies? I know that Isabel would rather write about the interesting warlike parts rather than the boring parts where we find out that Infernas combined with dragons."

Isabel piped up at this moment. "Well, I mean, if it's an important part of the story, it's likely that I should write it down for those who read it in the future."

"Again, who is going to read it?" Alphonse repeated, furthering the point that he had made what couldn't have been more than an hour or two ago. He made a good point, as well -- we were the only humans that remained in the world, as far as we knew. Since we had already heard the whole story, we wouldn't be reading it. What was the purpose of the book that Isabel was writing into? 

However, I didn't let these thoughts of pessimism about the future of our world bog me down. I had some more exposition to get into, and this was some wonderful stuff -- us learning about just how powerful the Molten Emperor truly was.

~Lion~

It had been a few days after the disappointing announcement of our plan to defeat the Scorch (the plan that Alphonse has already mentioned). Everyone was outraged at this, and the head councilor had even stated that the only reason we were going to implement this plan was because no one actually had any better ideas. Sadly, this announcement led only to more large amounts of disappointment. I actually felt bad for the Grand Council, that this situation had reduced them to the point where their best idea was using magic water to douse their fire.

"Is it even going to work?" Maddie asked me as I sat in a chair next to her in a room that was part of the remaining half of the Wizarding Guild. I was there just in case they needed some extra hands in repairing the building, and Maddie was there to keep me company, as the other Rangers pretty much had the repairs covered and it wasn't likely that they wouldn't need the help of me or the other spare Rangers that were scattered across the building.

"What is?" I asked, as I hadn't really been paying attention to what she was saying. I was more of just staring through her and into space as she relentlessly babbled(and yes, she did relentlessly babble. No reason to argue against it, I am a witness). 

"The plan that the Grand Council, with all their wisdom and brain power, came up with. You know, the one where we use the magic water from ocean drakes to throw on the Scorch Knights so we can douse their flames? I mean, the Rangers would do a better job of just fighting them."

"Well, that was only a few dozen. The Scorch Knights gain a serious advantage when they are able to overwhelm, and we had taken them from behind, so they had no element of surprise like they had on you magicians. So if the Scorch Knights were there by the hundreds and were endlessly raining fire and steel upon us, we would likely lose to them within three shakes of a lamb's tail, I bet you."

"What about the magic water? Will that even work?"

"Considering the magic against Unmagic matter, as well as the issue of the Scorch Knights being made out of fire that could only be doused by ice magic, I don't really foresee it working that well. However, ocean drakes are quite the sight to behold when they unleash their breath weapon, and their sheer force of pressurized water might be able to overtake the Scorch Knights. I remembered reading about the power of an ocean drake's breath weapon back when I was in the Ranger Academy, and they were quite powerful."