I woke slowly, somewhere comfortable. There was a plush mattress beneath me, and soft blankets packed around me. Most important, though, was the cool weight of an ice pack on my chest, counteracting the burning pain from the runes I had seared into my ribs.

As I woke up a bit more, I could hear voices arguing, and it took me a little while to realize it was King Relgore and Prince Asgore.

"--needs to face the consequences of his actions!" King Relgore was saying.

"He already is!" Asgore countered, coming to my defense. "Why do you think he's half dead, Dad? Because he likes being bedridden?"

"He wouldn't be there if he had listened to me when I ordered him not to do it!"

They continued like this for several minutes, arguing my guilt and arguing my innocence. I just laid there. No one was asking me to move yet, and I felt no particular need to move yet.

That changed, though, when I heard a door burst open. "Your majesty, you need to hurry! The humans have started their assault on the east side of town!"

I was forgotten as the king and prince rushed off to defend their people.

As soon as they were gone, though, my eyes snapped open. So I had missed my opportunity to prove my weapons' effectiveness to King Relgore in a controlled environment.

But what better way to prove myself than in a field test?

Suddenly, my chest didn't hurt in the slightest. I practically lunged out of bed. Then I retrieved my shirt, jacket, and scarf before heading for the east side of the city.

When I got there, the battle was already mid-swing. The city's outermost defenses were still holding, but things didn't look good for the monsters.

I grinned. That was going to change.

They would burn!

I lunged forward, grabbing up the staff of a fallen human. I would fight like that for as long as I could; no sense in revealing my weapons before they were necessary, much less not in King Relgore's sight.

At one point as I worked my way through the seething mass, my path crossed with Dagiel's. The shark monster admonished me for being out in the battlefield, and told me to get somewhere safe. I ignored him, aside from flashing him a slightly maniacal grin, before smashing my staff into a human skull.

Eventually, I found King Relgore. He and Asgore were fighting side by side. They had both sustained copious amounts of damage, but both were still standing, taking on at least nine humans at the same time. Several of those were Magic-wielders, two of which had not rune-inscribed staffs, but rune-inscribed swords.

Standing a little ways off, I slammed the end of the staff into the ground, pushing Magic through it. Moments later, my weapons, bone-shaped attacks, glowing with Magic, speared up through the ground, killing two of the humans and wounding several others.

The remainder turned to look at me.

For a moment, there was a tense stillness between us.

I couldn't help but grin. I was keeping my promise, Firhaur! I would make them burn!

And then we were fighting.

I fought, hard and fast. I used the staff, channeling Magic through it and using it as a weapon in itself, slamming it against people.

I don't know how long we fought, nor how many humans I was against. Every time I scored a successful hit against a human, I felt as if my flagging energy had been replenished. I was tireless, I was invincible, I was undefeatable.

And then...

I reared back, shocked, as the staff splintered in my hands, charred around the break. A glance up at one of the sword-mages told me he had been the one to cause it; there was no mistaking it in his snarky grin.

"Oh," he said, "that's a shame. What are you going to do now?"

I let the pieces of the staff fall to the ground, shaking my head in mock sorrow and sympathy. "Ohh, you poor, poor human. You didn't really think I would go to all the trouble of creating brand-new weapons, then bind them to the sole use of a wooden stick that could easily be stolen or broken, did you?" I grinned at him, crouching into a ready position as I wrapped my hands around a new attack, a bone about the length of a staff. "No, I am not so stupid."

And then we were fighting again, harder, faster. With every gesture I sent bones shooting out of the ground, with every sweep of my weapon I made contact with something.

Their screams were like music to my ears.

I fought, oh, how I fought! I made them burn, Firhaur, I did!

And then, I took a blow to my chest that sent me sprawling. For a moment, as I struggled to my feet, as the human approached, I was afraid.

"Any last words, you dirty human killer?" The swordsman snarled.

But I still had one last trick up my sleeve.

"Last words? No. But I do have a message for you." I saw the sudden, rising fear in his eyes as a purple the color of Firhaur's Magic bled into my sight. And I grinned, I grinned wide and maniacally, lifting my hands just a little. "Firhaur says hello," there was a whining sound in the air, building in pitch, "you   D I R T Y   B R O T H E R   K I L L E R S ."

And I threw back my head and laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed, as the roar of my weapons shattered the air, as the purple-tinged light cast shadows askew on the ground, as the beams of raw Magic cut gouges through the earth, tore up the ground, obliterated the humans, as Firhaur screamed in my skull, MAKE THEM BURN, GASTER, MAKE. THEM. BURN!!

And I laughed at the carnage, laughed at the voices of human agony, laughed and laughed as my Lv skyrocketed, AS THEY BURNED!

And then it was over. My fatigue overcame me, and I only let out one more chuckle at the ruined landscape before collapsing to the ground, unconscious.

We made them burn, Firhaur and I. We made them burn.

§

A/N

If anyone's curious, I was listening to 2 things while writing this.

This,

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

And this.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

Not-so-coincidentally, the second one was also quite frequently part of my writing soundtrack for UnderCorrupt.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!