The Rogue Mage

Chapter 9

  This was ridiculous. Absolutely freaking pointless. Go calm the Volcano Steve said, like it was something easy. As someone who had at one point been only a fire mage, Kai had spent years living beneath a volcano. She was familiar with the way the lava moved beneath the ground, the heat from the mountain.

   So maybe there was a chance she could do this. She'd do this and then she'd taken her leave of this team forever. 

   Kai sped up her pace, running to the edge of a crevice and then launching herself into the air. As she did, she called upon the winds to carry her. Wind whipped her cloak around her, sent her hair flying. Kai didn't think of this as flying, she wasn't nearly graceful enough, when Kai did this she was a leaf in the wind. 

    Folding her arms to her sides and letting her control of the wind drop. She tumbled to the ground, rolling a few times and wincing. But she hadn't practiced that particular trick recently, so that was the best she could do. By now she was only about 100 feet from the base of the mountain. 

  The heat from the volcano hit her in waves, someone who wasn't a flame mage wouldn't have bene able to go any further. Kai tugged her hood back into its secure place over her eyes.  Not that it mattered, she realized. If she stopped this volcano, every Mage left on the island would know it was her. 

   Kai was vaguely aware of her teeth grinding together as she jogged up toward the mountain. This was exactly what she was afraid of.  But she wasn't going to sacrifice hundreds of lives for her own safety. More importantly, the mages had set this volcano off, it wasn't its time. As a fire mage, she owed the Volcano some peace. 

    She could feel the heat from the ground seeping up through her boots. Once she was at the base of the Volcano, Kai took a knee. She pulled off her fingerless gloves, tossing them to the side. There was no point in trying to keep them, seeing as she was about to severely burn her hands.

  That's right; Kai was about to slap her hands down on a mountain that was burning ten times as a hot as frying pan. Why? Well, because Steve Rogers had looked at her with those massive puppy eyes and that sense of justice and asked her to. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself, Kai reminded herself that this pain would be nothing, that she'd been through worse.

   Kai slammed her hands down onto the ground, before she could change her mind. Instantly her hands screamed at her to lift them back up, pain shooting over her palms. But within seconds the pain faded as Kai focused. There was a deep pulsing from within the earth, a deep disruption. Someone had woken this ancient being up, this Volcano that should have been at peace for hundreds of more years. She could feel the rage radiating out from the center of the Volcano, and immediately reached out toward the elements. The hot magma bubbling within the volcano, the fire, the molten earth. Cool the Earth, calm the fire. Beneath the heat was pain. Horrible Pain.

   Kai's flesh was burnng, her blood was on fire. She was burning. Burning alive and there was no one to help her. Her parents were gone, her own Clan wanted nothing to do with her. Why did everyone hate her? Why did they cut into her everyday? Why couldn't the burning stop?

   The earth shook, jolting Kai out of her memory, a memory she'd been supressing for years. She had a job to do. This wasn't about her pain.

 Calm the fire. Calm the Earth. Calm.

Calm.

Calm.

Then darkness.