Fire was bored.
It thought that at this point, after getting a master and all that, that it and its brethren would have been called to partake in a glorious war, mortals dying in the millions and great conquests that would be sung about for Ages to come.
No such luck.
Instead, it and the rest were doing the same thing they had done since awakening in this twisted hellscape. Trying their best to conquer it.
It had made its discomfort known to Storm, and was told to be patient, for their time was nigh. Its words had merit, only being further proven by the combined symphony of notes and sounds that existed throughout all their cores at once, rising higher and higher into a crescendo it would never reach, that crescendo being their Lord, the potential to reach his Song was what made their connection. The Song in him spoke of a future of war and blood, all to give way to a glimpse of something, something that eclipsed all in its greatness.
Fire had to witness it.
And it seemed as if the days it spoke of were upon them.
The Song in its core burned, and is felt itself being called upon. It answered the call and was ripped from its strange new home into Reality. In mere seconds a raging fire ripped through most of the universe. Painting the stars and skies blood red. It was both destructive and harsh, hungry to devour all that was. At the same time it was nurturing and warm, the potential for life and innovation evident in it's blood red sparks. It reflected fire in it's truest, most primal form.
Then it shrunk down to an infinitesimal dot in the grand scale of the cosmos, although it was 3 kilometers in diameter. It then stood on two legs, encased in a suit of black armor.
Fire was here.
Fire looked around, observing its surroundings. It was on a small green planet(although it didn't feel the spark of life most planets had), which orbited an infinitely bigger green and blue one that had a surprising amount of life too.
In the middle of its observations, he heard a voice say, in an unknown language, "Yo! What's up?"
In seconds he decoded the language, drawing a bit upon Mind's power, and understood it was a way of greeting. He looked down at the tiny figure that was their Lord, and descended towards him.
***
"AAAAAGHHHH"
For a second there, I burned.
I burned and burned and burned but never seemed to get more hurt or crispy. It hurt like hell though. All I could see was red, and the red saw me too.
Until it shrunk back into a small star above Elysium and turned into something else.
And Holy Mother of Christ, that thing was huge. Even seeing it from another Mind's perspective was not enough to do their size justice.
I had called upon whichever one represented fire, and I guessed what I saw looked enough like a primal spirit of fire. It was a giant humanoid in intricate black armor, his helm had long horns, one pair rising straight up and then curving backwards, the tips spitting fire. The other pair went backwards, then forwards and down. In between the chinks was blood red fire spitting in great gouts. He was surrounded by fire. On his way to me, I saw him get hit by an asteroid, blowing open a hole in his chest. Inside the armor was just a blood red inferno, which shot out of him, connected to the pieces, and dragged them back to their rightful positions like nothing happened.
Then the armor just disassembled itself, dancing around the fire, which in turn danced around the pieces, and reassembled itself in a different arrangement, a lot bulkier, all spikes and blades.
Next it was slimmer, with metal shards behind it like wings.
Next it wasn't even humanoid.
By the time it had reached me, it had gone through 26 of these transformations.
It knelt down in front of me(which didn't matter, seeing as he still towered over the whole planetoid, and the entire plains was charred in seconds. The temperature on Elysium skyrocketed by 9 degrees, and at this point it was suppressing himself, heavily. If it wasn't, then he would have evaporated Elysium, caused the seas to boil on Earth, created droughts all over the planet, ignited the gas on every gas giant regardless of whether or not it was flammable, and make the only Aether type present for light years around nothing but Fire. It felt my anxiety ,or at least realized that it was a bit too hot (pause), and tamped itself down even further, to the point its flames were barely flickering.
"You guys don't have to kneel every time, stand up. So I had a question for you. If Reverend and Insanity already represent fire, then what are you?" I asked.
It stood up and looked down at me. Through its visor, I could see two smoky black orbs, which contrasted to the normally raging flames and were probably its eyes. With a voice that sounded like an inferno howling through the void, it answered straight into my mind, "My Lord, Reverend and Insanity, my mother and father, don't represent fire, they just manifest as such."
I was actually reeling from the realization that Reverend and Insanity were not brother and sister, but husband and wife.
'Actually we're both. Ever heard of Zeus and Hera? That type of stuff gets kind of blurry when you live for so long. Besides, it doesn't help that she's so cute.' Insanity answered.
'Quite the sweet talker aren't you?'
'That's me.'
I tired to ignore them and asked another question. "Oh, alright then. So, what's your name?"
"Fire, my Lord" It then bent down to look me in the eyes. The metal on his face twisted to resembled a razor-toothed grin, the mouth beyond it a raging field of fire.
"Now that we have formalities out of the way, may I show you what I am capable of?" It asked.
"Of course.... But uh.. could we not do it on this planet... actually scratch that, let's not do it anywhere in this solar system."
"Of course, my Lord. But aren't you currently in the form of a carbon-based lifeform?"
"Oh yeah." I realized. Well I guess I got an opportunity to test my ability to shapeshift.
I just followed my instincts. I felt my Minds contained in my body. That body was, rather than rigid, was so malleable that I was shocked I wasn't shaped by the way the wind blew. It was also evolving at a pace so fast that I could barely see it. Since nothing new was happening for it to evolve to combat, it was optimizing itself, energy consumption, metabolic rates, muscle and bone density, all of it was constantly getting better.
I looked at my body, modeled after humans and completely reliant on air and water to survive. The stronger a being gets, the less and less it needs anything other than Aether to survive. My shapeshifting couldn't substitute for that, which meant that I would need to fashion an entire physiology based of the void of space.
My mind went back to the Void Hawks I made during the Wild Card match. I probably couldn't recreate them since I was running on excess Aether from the Changing and pure anger, but I could at least transform what made them Void Hawks.
After about an hour, filled with pain, studying, and Fire's really interesting stories, I finally did it.
I had turned myself into a fully grown Void Hawk.
I turned back and sent a message to the others saying I would be off-world for a bit, and that they shouldn't worry. I then wrote the runes for Observe and record in Arcanil, which was really good for stuff pertaining to physics. The spell created these glowing orbs of light which went to my classes. I would view what they recorded later.
I transformed back and told Fire we were off. He just floated up into the air and followed me.
Yeah, this was awesome.