I breathe in and out and gather myself while slapping my hands across my cheeks. I've got this! I rush out of the building. I quickly duck under the cover of the rubble. Gotta move! Gotta move! I feel like the air around me is being pulled in a different direction. I don't get the gist of this thing's powers. It can push us back and pull us in, shoot blades, and who the hell knows what else! My thoughts rush into my mind faster than I can comprehend them as another blade comes flying towards me. I turn to face it, and somehow, even though there's a wall between us, I can tell it's there. I put my hands to cover myself, and it triggers a chain reaction as the wall crumbles under the force of scalding flares and intense winds.
"AHHH!" I get more scared of the flames as they uncontrollably erupt from my hands. As the wall between us is fully destroyed, I get a full view of it in all of its glory. The tribal tattoo markings, the demonic white mask, the silky hair, and its slim, feminine figure. She's a bad bitch?! Stunned by her beauty opens me up to an attack. I don't even register it till the pressure flows across my face and slams against the ground.
"Shit!" The whiplash makes my neck almost snap in two. As she puts her hands out, it changes from pushing to also slashing, and tiny marks appear all across my face. Slowly becoming bigger. What kinda dominatrix bullshit is this? I push off the ground, leaving a trail of flames as the pressure leaves me. I feel up my face. Shit, how much did she cut me up? Damn, this ain't this kind of battle damage, a fiction exclusive?
"Lay off me, weirdo!" I say getting up and running across the battlefield. I put my hands out, trying to summon the same feeling that caused the fire before. The fear of flames, deeply ingrained, wells up to the surface as flames sprout from my hands, not as intense as last time, as if they were afraid to emerge. The hell? They weren't this weak last time! I try to force something to come out, but I just feel like I'm pushing out a whole lot of nothing. Exhausting myself to release these flames, I find myself unable to think of a solution fast as another blade grazes past me, almost slicing my head off. You know, would think she would be a whole lot less threatening with the way she's just floating up there. Rushing back inside one of the other broken-down buildings by vaulting through one of the windows, I see a perfect catalyst, a piece of glass. Maybe if I try using an external source, it'll do something. Swiping it off the ground in one quick motion, I lift it to the sky and stab it through my hand.
"FUCK! I didn't mean for it to go all through! Holy shit, what's wrong with me?" I grunt while pulling out and take a deep breath in, letting it all out. Although the Ethereal seems to have other plans, knocking the whole building over with its winds. Goddamn, what does a guy have to do to get a break around here?
"STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!" I say, while following the instructions, I abruptly yell out loud. Although I swear I see it flinch from the surprise of my yelling. It almost knocks me back again, only to fail as I rush towards another building to gather my thoughts. Okay, now it's time to think. How'd I trigger the flames the first time, and why did it flinch at me screaming? Is she sensitive to certain sounds? Actually, wait, that doesn't matter right now. She has a simple attack pattern of slash, push, and pull. I can dodge the slashes, but if it's pushing me down, I won't be able to do anything. She doesn't seem to be very smart or tactical in the way she goes about fighting, maybe I can exploit that als-. A storm of blades comes flying through at terminal velocity and destroys the surrounding area. Buildings and otherwise. I sigh.
"Well, you certainly don't want to drag this on any longer, now do you?" I nervously chuckle and back off, trying to gauge what she's planning on doing until... WHOOSH! A stream of wind comes at me, more intense than last time. It causes the flames on my hands to go out of control, with it increasing the fire's spread across the area as it starts to consume the ruined city. Rubble begins burning, and the memories start to resurface, but I don't let myself get distracted for too long, as I remember there's somebody else on the battlefield. Dammit, right now he's a liability, and I need to get him out of harm's way. I rush over to the building I was at before I stop and assess the area. I don't see him, but I know he's there. I claw away at the rubble and see him looking even worse than last time.
"Oh, you aren't dead yet, good for you." God, I wish he would just shut up. I roll my eyes and hoist him over my back, carrying him in a less-than-adequate manner. While I'm picking him up, the fires rage even hotter to the point that even Yohan seems to start feeling it. "Is it me, or is it getting a bit hot in here?"
"Well, yeah, no shit, take a look around, there's a whole bunch of fire."
"That cause of you?"
"Does it matter right now?"
"If I'm going to burn to ashes, I at least wanna know who to blame it on."
"Yeah, well-." A stream of blades flies past us and crashes pretty far from us, and I look right back at her, but the flames create a mirage that prevents me from seeing where she is. But an idea pops into my head that very moment. The mirage's messing up her vision. I grab Yohan even tighter and tell him, "You know, I've never been much of a fan of fire, which is why I never bothered to pay attention to what happens in the kitchen. But the way I'm bout to start cooking, you might as well call me a chef."