Firebird's Flight

If you asked anyone in New Ember City who knew anything about heroes, they probably would have ranked Redwing as the number two. Avatar was first, obviously. Then Redwing, then Mystic and after that it became more debatable. The amount of heroes who existed and the sheer variety of powers made direct rankings hard except for those three. They stood head and shoulders above the rest because each of them possessed a certain something that others lacked. Mystic was, well, a magic user. One of the most skilled that the city had ever known. He was a jack of all trades. He could do nearly anything though not always as well as someone who specialised in it. Avatar was Avatar. The living incarnation of nature's fury. A man made of metal and crystal with molten iron blood and eyes that burned with the fire of the earth's core.

Then, there was Redwing. Redwing was considered to be the most ''normal'' of the big three. She didn't have a bag of tricks like Mystic and she didn't have some weird esoteric origin like Avatar. She was just someone who could fly and hit very hard. Or at least, that was how it seemed at first. Until you took a look at her history.

Because Redwing _was _more than that. She had a grab-bag of minor powers - flight, strength, endurance - but her main power had always been her control of the flame. Fire. It danced in her hair and flowed around her, a surging corona of fury which was bright enough to blind the unshielded eye. Ashes danced around her, embers spiralled in her wake. She was Redwing but her name hearkened back to an older one. Redwing, the Firebird, the descendent of the great phoenix. Her power wasn't just fire. It was primal, beyond mere heat. When she cut loose - when she really cut loose - you would see exactly why she was considered second best hero in Ember City and one of the top ten in the world.

The Goddess of Darkness learned this now. Redwing hit her with everything. Great wings of ragged flame erupted from her back and she smashed into the shadow-woman. The impact hurled Dusklord to the ground where he rolled and came up gasping. He looked on, eyes wide as he saw Redwing fight seriously for one of the first times in his life.

Light _blazed _around her. She was a comet, a trailing projectile wreathed in golden light and crimson flame. She hit the shadow-woman hard and kept going, driving her towards the far wall. Light and shadow battled furiously but darkness was no match for this. Spears of illumination stabbed into it, broke it apart. Severed its constructs before they could form. The Lady of Shadow was facing someone who wielded the very antithesis of her being.

Lilly smashed her into the far wall and kept going. The castle shook. All over it people shouted in alarm. Guards were running and sheer confusion reigned. Thew all ignited and then shattered as the two women came barrelling through. Lilly's teeth were clenched as she drew out more and more of her power. Faster, harder, she wasn't even nearly done yet! The Shadow Lady was spitting curses at her, claws of shadow scythed for her face and body but they burned up before they could reach her. The corona around her was now hotter than the surface of the sun. Stone was melting and running like liquid. It was only her **** control and training which allowed her to exert this heat without killing everyone and everything around her.

This was Redwing fighting with all of her strength. This was the power of Ember City's number two hero.

The Shadow Lady endured. Her aura was blasted, riven with darts of fire. Redwing's hand had closed around her throat, driving her body backwards as they went. A plume of flame marked their wake as they crashed through wall after wall. Metal and stone melted and shrieked around them. They smashed through room after room. Reinforced stone walls shattered like glass, spells intended to ward off invaders screamed and died. People desperately hurled themselves out of the way. Several times they nearly caught an innocent but Lilly swerved at the last instant.

The Shadow Lady was burning. Her skin, her hair, her limbs were all trailing fire. Her aura of darkness was ragged and broken.

After what seemed like an eternity, they left the castle through the roof. The plume of fire rose into the sky. The people of the town below turned to watch and stare. Lilly rose higher and higher, the wind beating against her corona. The fire around her was not shapeless, it had taken the form of a great bird, and the Shadow Lady was caught in its beak. She was still fighting. Though her body burned there was no pain in her eyes. Lilly brought them into the sky for a moment and hovered. She could feel her body straining. The power within her desperately raging against the chains of her willpower. She wasn't going to run out of strength or energy, but if it broke free of her control then fire would consume everything around her for miles. That was why she didn't use this power except when she needed to. She could hold it at bay for only a few minutes.

But those minutes had always been more than enough.

She saw what she was looking for and with a beat of her wings she angled towards one of the distant hills that ringed the town. It was a large one, flinty and hard. It was some miles distant but at the speed they were going this was only a few beats of her wings. When she was above it, she angled herself and pulled her wings in.

She dove.

Fire screamed around her. Embers and ashes swirled in her wake. Lilly and the Shadow Lady smashed into the hill with all the **** of a comet from the heavens. She drove the goddess into the stone with all of her strength, felt the hill shudder. Stone screamed and ran red hot. It bubbled and boiled like magma around them. Then came the fire. Lilly released her full power at last. A plume of furious heat lanced to the heavens. A shockwave smacked into the town. Even from this distance, people were hurled from their feet. There was a blinding flash of light. A heat so intense earth fused into glass. Half of the hill Lilly had chosen as her target was gone now. It ran like molten magma, flowing downwards while more of it crackled and broke in glassy sheets.

It looked like a volcano.

Lilly stood in the centre. She was still naked, but that didn't matter. She'd be naked no matter what she was wearing. This kind of heat would have burned away any clothes. Her brown hair flowed in the wind, embers kissed her skin. Around her, a scene of utter destruction. No military could have been more complete in its ruin.

Beneath her, the Shadow Lady lay. Her body was broken and burned. There was nothing left of her aura. She lay in the crater formed by the impact gazing upwards at the heroine.

"You're done," Lilly said. "As soon as Dusklord gets here, we're going to seal you away again. Somehow I don't think you'll have the strength to get out of it this time."

The Shadow Lady looked up at her and started to cough. No, not cough. Lilly realised she was laughing. A raspy, cruel laughter that shook her whole body.

Lilly's fist balled. She didn't know exactly what the other woman was laughing at but in her experience villains suddenly laughing when you had them dead to rights wasn't a good thing.

"What are you laughing at?"

"My son's whore," The woman rasped. "Bound in chains and stripped of dignity. Yet now you stand and threaten me with your power? You have no understanding of what is to be."

"Chains? Maybe. Stripped of dignity? Never." She put her foot on the other woman's gut, pressing her into the ground firmly to make sure she didn't slip away. A corona of flame began to flicker around her. Not enough to burn but enough to ward off any sudden attack. She'd done this sort of thing before and villains were often most dangerous right when they were cornered.

"You play the part of a ****, girl. Does that not tell you what you are inside?"

"It tells me I have a healthy approach to sex," Lilly said. "But I'm not defined by that and I'm not exactly going to let you browbeat me into feeling bad about myself for what I like to do. Especially since you just tried to kill like two people right in front of me. Fetish, ****. Which one do you think is worse? Here's a hint, it's the one that kills people."

Suddenly, the Shadow Lady surged upwards. The motion threw off Redwing's foot, but she was ready for it. A knee smashed into the goddess's gut, and she doubled with a groan of surprise.

"I've seen that one," Redwing said. "Most villains try it."

A flash of darkness sliced for Redwing from behind, carving towards the back of her neck. It met a wave of fire which broke it into pieces.

"Seen that one too. Give up. You're not nearly as strong as you were when we started. You don't like fire, do you? It burns your power away. You like shadow and darkness, heat and light is your enemy. But Dusklord doesn't have that weakness..."

"Alexi is half mortal..." The goddess groaned as she picked herself up. "Stability comes from his father. His darkness is less than mine but does not fear the light. I am greater than he, and yet I burn where he does not."

"Fascinating," Redwing said, "But not distracting. Don't think I don't notice you gathering power for that surprise attack to my left."

The Shadow Lady chuckled again.

"I was wrong about you, perhaps. You are more than just my son's whore. You have strength and confidence too. Yet you lust for the bite of the chain. You desire the punishment of a master."

Lilly's face coloured slightly.

"Really? We're going to discuss my sexual fetishes as we wait for you to be sealed away? I mean it's not the weirdest conversation I ever had with a villain but it's pretty up there. Let's start with something else. Why did you rescue Dogma?"

"Him? The screaming one? He fell through time and space. No end and no beginning. Like me. Felt...kinship. Could not save myself but could save him. Through him, I was able to find freedom as well. We made a bargain."

"You struck a deal," Lilly said. "What did he offer you? What have you done for him?"

The Shadow Lady laughed again.

"Power. He gave me power. Half of his strength became mine."

"I see," Lilly said. "That's why Dusklord was surprised that you were stronger than you used to be. Dogma was insanely powerful before. Even with my full strength fighting him was a challenge. No wonder you were able to put down both Alister and Dusklord. You would have been a hard fight for me too, but I had type advantage."

She narrowed her eyes.

"That's what he gave you. Now what have you done for him?"

"Partnership," She said. " He has schemes. Plans. Foolish ones which can never take root the way he wants them to, but he still insists on trying. The defiance of mortals, I suppose."

"What do you mean?" Lilly said. "How are his plans not taking root the way he wants them to?"

"He wants to fight the end," the dark goddess said. "He wants to rage against the dying light. He moved through time, he _saw _what is coming. The end of light. The **** of flame. He thinks he can prepare. That he can endure. But he cannot. However, his attempts to do so are amusing. In the end his struggles will avail him nothing, but I agreed to allow him to try. My service for his service in turn. Half of his soul. Half of his power and one other thing as well. The key to the very future he wishes to avoid."

"The key to the future...?" This wasn't exactly Lilly's first brush with a doomsday situation. She'd seen off more of them than she could recall at this moment. Even so she felt a tingle of apprehension. "So what you're telling me is that you're the one who he's struggling against. You're helping him to fight against yourself? He gave you the key to doom the world in order to fight against the future he saw which only happened because he gave you the key."

"The perspective of mortals is amusing, isn't it?" She agreed. "Perhaps he saw only part of the future. Perhaps he did not understand. Maybe he thinks he can change it, I know not. But the regardless, the bargain was struck. The chance to avenge myself on my wayward children was only an unseen benefit."

"That's right. You're a terrible mother, by the way. Just thought I'd mention it. You tried to kill your sons. Maybe you even did kill Alister."

"Ha! No, not a chance. Both of them are half me. My power flows through their body, their blood and their very soul. Alister will heal. He will be in quite a bit of pain, and he will probably curse me for it, but he will recover. Alexi was not in danger of **** either. Even if I had choked him, he would have recovered in days. Kin to shadow do not die easily. Or quickly."

"Well, that's good to know at least. Though I suppose it does mean I am going to have to look into the whole ''slavery is legal'' issue later like I originally intended to. I am sure we can get him to change that. One way or another."

"You..." The Shadow Lady looked at Lilly, her dark eyes roaming over her naked body. Lilly didn't flinch, nor did she feel particularly aroused. Right now she was in hero mode. All business. "You have designs on my son?"

"Really?" Redwing said, "We're doing this right now? Don't tell me you're going to pretend you actually care. You nearly threw him through a wall!"

"He lived, didn't he?"

"You called Alister disappointing!"

"The anger will make him grow stronger!"

"You're trying to end the world!"

"Only for people like you. My kin would happily survive in the coming time."

"I am -not- discussing my romantic interest in Dusklord with you."

"Very well then. We shall test it another way."

The Shadow Lady lunged again. Redwing countered with an uppercut but before it could connect the world around them both began to grow darker. The goddess' aura of shadow flowed back into existence around her. Redwing snarled and released a corona of flame. Fire and light clashed again, illumination burned away at the shadow. It was slower this time though. Redwing realised that she'd fallen for the exact thing she said she wouldn't. The Shadow Lady had built power while talking about Dogma, knowing that her prior history with him would keep her laser focused on that. Light burned shadow, but there was so much shadow. She'd built it up and up, focused it into a thick sludge and now it flowed forth spreading through the air. Redwing just had time to shield herself with her corona before it engulfed her. It flowed around her like a liquid, a semi-solid which was ice to the touch.

Lilly cried out. The shadow was different. It was like water and cold to the touch. Her own aura turned it back, burning it away whenever the two made contact but it was all around her. Surrounding her, engulfing her. Attacking from all angles. She gathered her power to release a flare of light to throw it back but now the shadow lady was on the attack. She slammed a fist into Lilly's gut, the sheer strength of it **** the air from her lungs. She doubled over and the pain distracted her.

Her aura flickered out for an instant. Only an instant but it was enough.

The darkness closed in and suddenly she was drowning in it. It was all around, freezing her skin, coiling around her limbs. She thrashed to try and free herself but it didn't want to release her. She tried to draw on her power but it felt fainter and fainter. She was cold, the world was distant. Her body felt heavy. The shadow was doing something to her, making her feel tired. She couldn't move. She couldn't see anything but darkness.

Redwing fell forward, collapsing first to her knees and then face first into the ground. Her mind dwindled, she felt like she was being pulled down and down into a great abyss.

The last thing she heard was the shadow lady speaking above her.

"We shall see just how much you truly love the chain."

Then there was darkness.

Author's Note: Okay guys, thanks for sticking with me for the last few chapters. They were quite plot heavy but I needed to get them out of the way. We can get back to more sexy stuff in the next chapter. Plot will still be happening but at this point I can start to mix and match.