“About time,” Salamander said, fishing the last piece of paper out of the bowl. There was no need to unfold it; the blaze elemental burned it between her fingers in a quick flash of magical fire. John checked his phone, it was almost 15:00 o’clock now. On average, each date had gone on for over an hour (with Aclysia’s being the shortest and Rave’s being the longest as individual outliers). Dating was quite a good way to spend half a day, John found. “Okay, come with me,” the blaze elemental grabbed John by the arm and dragged him away without any effort.

It was easy to forget that Salamander actually had quite the high Strength stat. It was her third highest and even cracked into the triple digits. Her actual main stats were Intellect and Agility, as was befitting of a small, flying ranged fighters. Why nature gave her this high Strength and not the Endurance to support a melee fighting style was beyond John. Maybe a preparation for the future? As it stood, it was largely misallocated, adding further credibility to the fact that, in many ways, Salamander was his weakest elemental right now.

From the level of strength, measured in actual usefulness in most combat situations, the current ranking went as followed: Undine, Siena, Sylph, Gnome and finally Salamander, with Stirwin set aside due to being a bit special in his applications. Sure, when Salamander could do her thing, burning down large areas, then she was amongst the most useful, but that required a whole lot of inflammable material. She was seriously held down in the comparison due to the thing she was supposed to best at, area damage, being better done by Sylph simply due to the Tier difference.

Although now that John gave her a random Observe to check on those stats again, the Emotions box seemed way more important. Something was about to ruin his day. Salamander gave him a glance that was a complicated mixture of anger, anticipation and shock, as if she had just been caught doing something she really shouldn’t. She must have noticed him using the skill or his following emotional reaction.

Either way, they emerged on the flat ceiling of their apartment. They were on their own up here. It was also pretty boring up here, just a bunch of loungers to get a tan in. A panel at the side allowed customization, like everywhere else in the VIP compartment, but John doubted Salamander wanted to suggest a private BBQ.

“So, why now?” John wanted to know as they sat down opposed from each other. That was by Salamander’s design, as he sat down first and she then took the deliberate decision to pick another seat. “Why do you want to talk to me about something important when this was supposed to be a date?” he tried to sound as non-chastising as possible. What he wanted was to understand the groundwork, not make her feel like she was in front of an inquisitor.

Salamander gave him a casual cackle; she was taking this the way he wanted, which was good. “For a start, I never really wanted that date. You do know by now that not every girl in this fan club of yours is out to be lovey-dovey. Some of us just aren’t built for it.”

“You seem to have a completely wrong mindset towards what people expect from dates,” John went to correct her. “It’s not about ‘lovey dovey’ stuff, as you put it, it’s just two people having a good time with the clear implication of romantic intentions. A date without hugs and kisses is out of the norm, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just go watch a boxing fight, for example.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t get that,” Salamander admitted. “We can do that together with everyone else. We DO do that together with everyone else all the time. Don’t see a reason to be alone with you to have a good time, or why it would be a better time than the usual day. Guess it’s because I am not actually in love with you, huh?”

“Well, it’s a pretty likely explanation,” John exhaled slowly. “We should go on a real date just so you can see for yourself.”

“But not now,” Salamander said. “I just went with the pretence to get you alone with me.”

“But not now…” John mumblingly agreed. “So, what do you actually want to talk about? Is it that tiny thing you still hide from everyone?”

The blaze elemental extended a hand into the gap between them. The black coloured metal ornament at her wrist spawned a flame that then jumped over to her palm, where it grew into a fire that looked like it belonged on the end of a torch. “Yes.” Memories suddenly flooded into John, and he willingly jumped into the hot ashes.

___________________________________________________________________________

“You fuckers can get bent if you think I am just going to let this slide as easily as you are. I, for my part, will not let this be bygone,” Salamander shouted at everyone in the mud-covered living room.

John remembered this scene. Siena was mopping the floorboards. A pissed off Eliza, then still falsely called Thana, was sitting in drenched clothes on the leather couch. This was the evening after Undine’s evolution.

“B-but,” Gnome stuttered her way into the conversation, slightly afraid of Salamander’s black eyes that seemingly wanted to use whatever they fell onto as fuel, just as the coal that was their colour. “We forgave Thana, so we can surely forgive Undine.” Sylph agreed to that with overbearing nods.

‘What load of shit,’ Salamander thought. “Thana didn’t have a choice; she wanted her last moments to be filled with something that wasn’t fucking pain,” she reprimanded them. “Undine did.” ‘How can they not see that this is someone fucking up so royally that we seriously need to deal with this with a proper amount of anger?’ the blaze elemental asked herself. ‘We can’t just let her back in like that. Not after that giant mess she made…not after she was this big of an indecisive disappointment.’

“I am with firecrotch here,” Eliza chimed in; the two of them exchanged a thumbs-up. At least someone here had a brain.

“I agree…” Undine also agreed, turning Salamander’s insides into a confused knot of validation and sadness, “I will do what is within the range of my possibilities and comfort to achieve your forgiveness.”

“Sure you will,” Salamander spat out with crossed arms, flying away to deal with that confusion that was besetting her mind somewhere alone.

“You can come right back here,” John shouted after her.

“What a fucking nuisance of a summoner, mother damn this angler-dick,” the blaze elemental grumbled but obeyed. No reason to add even more chaos to this list.

“Look, I get that you are angry,” he began. Salamander almost laughed out loud in the most mocking way imaginable.

‘Did YOUR idol just go ahead and commit the most stupid and reprehensible act possible?’ she furiously thought, locking it behind the rest of her anger. How could he know how she felt right now? How could he ‘get’ anything she was feeling right now? As a matter of fact, she knew he couldn’t. Not if she didn’t let him into her mind, and she didn’t plan to, not right now.

“And I am not particularly happy with this whole situation either. Undine is vouching to better herself though, right?”

The wave of agreement that came from the ocean elemental was amended with a quick, “Yes,” after she received a reminder that she should be more emote through a warning glance from their summoner.

“I don’t need you to forgive her today,” John continued, “but don’t get yourself lost in some far-fetched hatred.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Salamander hissed. What was this conversation even? All she wanted was some time alone and deal with her shit and now this asshole thought he could give her a lecture? “She is still my sister, I could never hate her. Now let me cope by drying up that swamp outside!” She didn’t wait for the answer, and now she was pissed enough that the next time he would call her back she would throw back a fireball as her answer.

It didn’t come to that, and so she made her way outside.

John was watching, but none of this was what she had been hiding. Behind that barrier had laid not much more than a few words, not a whole string of memories. Why was Salamander showing him this?

“Dumb, disappointing, piece of SHIT!” Salamander screamed at the world as she threw fireballs as the wetlands that once had been a garden. They disappeared each with a disappointing hiss, creating balls of steam. Everything was a blur as he just threw her powers around. The turmoil she wanted to calm only stirred up more, like a fire that had burned down a candle to find it bedded in a lake of oil.

Oily tears ran down Salamander’s face, tears of anger. Anger towards herself, as she quickly came to realize. Undine had disappointed her. She had turned out to be the greatest fuck-up amongst them instead of the calming presence that Salamander had wanted her to be. She had lost the symbol of someone being able to deal with their own problems and simultaneously a voice of wrathful reason when necessary.

And underneath the void that loss had created, she found the question why she needed such an idol in the first place. It was because she didn’t think that she could be that herself. She didn’t believe in herself. When had she begun to turn to others for her salvation? Why would she make an idol of something that she herself then got further and further away from?

“Raaaaaaaah!” Salamander created a giant fireball over her head and cast it down at the mud below. It created an area of burnt and eroded ground; the sudden loss of all moisture having caused it to break open. Exhausted, Salamander fell down. She tumbled for a bit before coming to a halt with her face in the dirt. Her clenched fist slowly rose and hit the ground again and again in a futile gesture of anger.

What was this tantrum even going to accomplish? Her fist stopped and sank back to the ground with an open palm. She pressed herself off the ground, dirt and pieces of mud hiding her burned out form. Her small head looked around and saw nothing of interest. Water slowly seeped back into the ground from the surrounding areas.

What was she going to do? Just go back with all of this unresolved wrath acted out for the moment, waiting for it to flare up again? That would be the equivalent of letting deadwood gather in her soul, eventually it would just be enough to keep her burning all the time. It was the easy way forward, but not the one at the end of which she still saw herself as someone she wanted to be.

She needed to stop idolizing anyone. That was easy, she was once bitten and twice shy. What was more, she needed to become what she wanted Undine to be. ‘No,’ Salamander corrected herself, ‘I can’t be what I wanted from her. I need to be me and what she couldn’t.’

The hidden areas of Salamander’s spirit rolled back and revealed to John what she meant by that in its entirety, a list of commandments to herself, values of her own design, and the final one made his hair stand on end.

‘I need to be able to help those who turn to me – even if I can’t do it with the grace I want.’

‘I need to be able to get my own shit together before I criticise others – and I can’t boast about it.’

‘I need to be able to avenge that which others did to those dear to me – No matter the risk.’

The blaze elemental rose from the mud, dried dirt falling off her like a cast.

‘I need to become stronger - I will be the best among us in what I deem to be the best possible person.’

‘I need to face what Undine failed to and succeed.’

_________________________________________________________________________

“Which means that I have to face the Lorylim by myself and beat them,” Salamander’s spoke out as John looked up from the flame in her hand. “I won’t be able to be who I want to fucking be before I haven’t achieved this.”

“That is insane,” John told her, “they are liquid corruption, how would you even…” The truth hit him like a ton of bricks and he jumped out of his seat. “No, I am not doing that! Especially not just so you can stroke your ego!”

“IT’S NOT TO STROKE MY EGO, YOU IDIOT!” Salamander shouted as she jumped up herself. “I NEED to do this to understand where the hell I am even going. I am confused, John, I don’t get my place in this world and just following yours isn’t good enough – for me.” She gestured wildly. “I need to do this to…to…” she struggled to put it into words, “I don’t know, I just know that I need to do this.”

“You will be corrupted and then what? I refuse to believe that these things are stupid enough to not have learned about Nia’s capabilities by now. There is no safety net!” John said. “So let me say it again: this is insane.”

Salamander stared at him with wide eyes for a moment; his doubts only seemed to add further fuel to the fire inside her. “Yes,” she said, “I am insane, John. I am a spark of war itself, my favourite past time activities are burning things and laughing as I burn people. I cannot feel love for people who haven’t achieved frankly impossible things.” She stood as tall as she could, a fair bit above John, and looked down. “What part of me, do you exactly think, is normal? I am death, John, I am a fire of nothing but destruction, my calling is to reduce humans stupid enough to fight each other back into the blank slate of ash.”

“And yet you manage to live with each of us,” John tried a calmer approach as he realized that him screaming about really wasn’t helping. “Please, you don’t need to do this.”

“No, I do,” Salamander insisted, “and if you won’t let me do this – if you want to compromise your own promise to give us as much freedom as is possible in the bounds of our contract – then you might as well unbind me here and now and search yourself a fire elemental that is more docile.”

She was determined to do this. With the appearance of this window, there was no more doubt about it, as much as John wanted to find some. It was either her way or no way at all. “This is insane,” he said for the third time.

“Yes,” Salamander said with a straight face.

“You want me to get a second SEP on hold and then let you use both of them at yourself. Infecting yourself in the same way Undine did just so you can attempt to beat them,” John had to say all of this out loud.

“Yes,” the fire spirit had no qualms about it. She had made up her mind a long time ago.

Air audibly entered his lungs and then, just as audibly, was blown out again. He repeated that cycle four more times and sorted his thoughts.

So, what if he declined? Then Salamander was gone. First from his life and then, if she managed to find some way to reach the Lorylim on her own, gone entirely. So, if he said no to her here, then he only had the satisfaction of having stood his ground, gaining nothing and losing the thing he wanted to protect anyway.

If he said yes, he at the very least got to make sure this was done as safely as it could be. He could take precautions, prepare himself for the best and worst possibilities. That way he could at least maximize her survival chances. Every fibre of his being resisted that notion, but between these two evils, there was one where he had a chance for a future with Salamander and one where it was guaranteed that she ended up dead or corrupted.

There was also a risk to himself. The chances of the Lorylim not affecting him in some way were slim. Undine had broken her contract immediately, on purpose or not, not that these… things knew that there was actually a powerful summoner attached to the elemental; they would, highly likely, have some sort of plan to spread the corruption beyond just their initial target. These things weren’t stupid, they had a brain and they had goals John couldn’t grasp yet.

In the end, he hit the ‘No’ button on that window, declining the break of contract. “This is incredibly stupid and we are going to do it in an absolutely controlled environment,” he told her, “giant shield, everyone on standby, especially Nia, and if it goes totally south…we may have to…” he didn’t even want to say it.

“I know, I fucking know,” Salamander rolled her eyes with infuriating dismissiveness. “I went through this so often, each possible idea you could have is already completely chewed through in my mind.”

“And yet still you insist,” John rubbed his temples.

She gave him a cackle, “What do you expect from a fire elemental, John? My kind knows, it’s better to burn out than to fade away.”