Molten Clay (southern belle)

“You think you’re awfully tough, don’t you?”

The two figures stood atop the roof, eyeing one another with a fierce intensity. The wind was scarce but the air on top of the skyscraper was chill. The sun sat high in the midday sky with nary a cloud in sight. Down below on streets did flow a thousand busy feet, oblivious to the two men 80 stories above them.

“Not another step closer,” the imp replied, holding up a small chunk of lead. The small creature stood at roughly three feet and had pale grey skin. His eyes were black and his ears were pointed. “You damn psychics. Wretched do-gooders is what you are. Who’re you sucking up to, boy scout? Do you want a goddamn medal? Should I phone in and have a plaque made up in your honour?”

“You’re the mouthiest little bastard I’ve ever met, you know that?” The second was of a much taller stature and had a more vibrant, lively colour to his skin. His brown hair was brushed to the side by the wind. His jeans and black spring jacket contrasted sharply with the sewn clothes of the imp.

“Oh no! No, no, no, no! You don’t get to talk about me, you dirty, horrid psychic. You’re the filth of this time, I hope you know. In my time, we had real do-gooders. Mages and wizards and warlocks and the like. The world grew dim the day you pompous twits gave up on magic.”

“Just give the store owner back his jewelry.”

“No,” the imp spat back.

Demmy rolled his eyes. “Well, your argument has me convinced.”

“Don’t use your sarcasm on me, psychic! I know all about you troublesome lot. Don’t like lead, do you? I bet you just hate this, don’t you?” he asked, wiggling the piece of metal in his hand to and fro. “Either you let me go or I’ll throw this at you, right now. I hear it does horrible things to your insides.”

The smile faded from Demmy’s face. “The millisecond that piece of lead leaves your hand, I will rip you apart, molecule by molecule. There’ll be nothing left of you by the time it reaches me.”

The tiny grey being stopped wiggling the metal around. He looked at his shoes for a moment and then back up at Demmy. “You can’t do that. I’ve run into others of you. I know you can’t do that.” His bold statement was met by Demmy’s challenging eyes. “Fine! You bloody vermin. I swear, we imps should have done away with you all while you were still rare. My descendants were fools.”

“Just give me the goddamn bag.”

“No.”

Demmy had had enough of that. Lead or no lead, he charged forward at the imp, whose eyes widened. The tiny little beast turned and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him over the edge of the building. It was his last escape route and he’d been contemplating it for the past few minutes.

To his surprise and great horror, he turned around midfall to see that Demmy had followed him over the edge and was falling at a faster rate. He’d hoped to collect more precious stones on his journey to the future, but the troubled, little, time travelling imp decided the risk had grown too large. With a high-pitched little squeak, he jumped through a portal back into his own time.

Demmy quickly analysed the area where the imp had disappeared. Then, without a word, he released the majority of his stored energy to rip the hole back open.

As he fell with his head to the ground, the last thing Demmy saw was the blur of windows of the building adjacent to him. The blinding reflection of the sun was gone in an instant as the skyscraper disappeared and was replaced by green. A second later, Demmy hit the ground with a loud thud and let out a cry of agony.

~

OoC - I put it in the Battle Arena because I figured it would lean more heavily toward battling than adventure.

Trees, flashing past incredibly fast, faster than the normal eye could register. But it was not a normal eye that watched them. They were huge, ancient things. Their leaves grew so clustered that little light could filter through to the ground below. What did was so indirect that it had turned to an odd greenish-grey. The effect it caused was almost spooky.

The scene flickered and changed. A barren wastland, sand stretching for miles. The air wavered with heat, and the sun beat harshly on anything and anyone unlucky enough to be caught under it's wrath. The scene was void of the usual suspects - insects and scorpions, hardy desert scrub - it seemed truly lifeless. It almost looked like there might be some tracks in the distance, but a desert wind soon blew sand over the area, covering it. Useless.

Changed again. Another forest, this one younger than the last. The trees were mostly elms, tall and slender. Yellow-green leaves rustled and flickered in the wind. The whole thing was just so... *bright*... and *cheery*. Ugh. It reeked of the sort of place Bella would spend time. The girl was a fool, limiting her magic to places like this. Earth magic, *true* earth magic, encompassed all forms of the earth, not just foliage.

The leaves rustled musically. The wind whistled happily through the trees. And then... over the sounds of the forest, something foreign. Voices? The scenery flew past as she sought the source. Surely, she was close now...

The vision suddenly flew away. A grinning, shifty figure occupied the space that moments before had been filled with trees. It flickered and crackled, flames reaching out from it to lick at the room.

Luna stared at the elemental for a moment, rage building within her. She had been so close! Closer than she'd ever gotten before... The silence didn't last for long, and she began cursing the thing. In her fury, she loosed a blast of fire at it. This had no effect, of course, other than adding a few more scorch marks to the plan stone walls behind it, but it made her feel slightly better. Slightly.

The elemental seemed unphased by Luna's rage. In fact, it almost looked as though it were grinning, though it was hard to tell. It waited until she had quieted. "So sorry to disturb you," it's voice hissed and crackled. It didn't seem very sorry. "I just thought you might find it interesting to know that you have a guest."

"What?" Luna's voice was sharp, dangerous. She turned her attention to the spell that surrounded her fortress -- a sort of variation of a shield, but with a trigger to alert when the barrier was breached. Sure enough, she discovered that someone was right outside the fortress. "Well, go and deal with him!" she snapped angrily at the fiery creature.

The elemental's expression grew dark, it's grin slipping away. "Be careful not to overstep your bounds, sorceress. Remember who your are servents, and who aren't." It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the room considerably darker.

Luna stood fuming for a moment. She her attention to the breach in her spell, which gave away the intruder's location. She had been moments away from finding Bella! The wretched fool that had broken her concentration would come to regret his trespassing, she would make sure of that...

Demmy groaned. “That’s going to bruise.” He sat up and pushed the kink out of his neck. Disorientation hit him like a train as he realized that he was sitting in a forest. Planting one hand in the soft soil behind him, Demmy lifted himself to his feet. Now where the hell did that elf go?

Immediately after he’d asked himself the question, something hit him hard in the back of the neck. The entire world blurred for a moment and Demmy fell to his knees. Before he could regain his composure, something landed on his back. Two scrawny little legs wrapped around his abdomen. He tried to shake the creature off but was met with a searing pain in his head.

A high-pitched jeer rang out from the imp’s foul mouth. “Not so tough now, are you, psychic? Should have stayed in your own time.” He pressed the lead deeper into the skin of Demmy’s neck. The larger of the two tried to shake off the smaller, but inevitably collapsed onto his stomach. He couldn’t concentrate and he could feel himself losing consciousness. His breathing slowed and his movement stopped.

“There we go,” the imp said in premature conclusion. He unwrapped his leg from the motionless man and hopped up. His feet made crunching noises in the leaves beside Demmy’s head. He pocketed the lead and brushed his hands in triumph.

As the imp waddled away, prepared to trade his day’s haul, a weakened Demmy raised himself out of the dirt with one hand. The small urchin turned at the sound and jumped in terror as his pocket tore itself open. The chunk of lead and bag of gems fell to the ground. He was knocked off his feet by an unseen force as he bent to retrieve them.

Demmy snatched the small sack from the ground and shook his head. He turned to look for the imp but found nothing. Instead, a pair of tiny, grubby little hands wrapped themselves around his neck. Demmy reached around to his back and grabbed the imp by what little hair he had. What greedy little bastards, he thought.

“Stay down, you pest!” Demmy wound up his arm and threw the imp far into the forest. The deafening shrieks of terror were a soothing reward. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. As he prepared to make a jump back to the future, he realized he didn’t have nearly enough energy. The combination of his first jump and his close proximity to lead had left him rather drained.

Demmy could make out what seemed to be the outline of an old fortress in the distance of the forest. From afar, he couldn’t tell whether or not he was seeing things, but a psychic scan confirmed what his intuition had suggested. With no other option, he began a trek to that fortress.