This was a fanfic I once uploaded on dA, but I took it down eventually for revision. It stayed in that period for several years until I decided to get back to it again recently. Then I was spurred with by an idea that would help me further deepen the plot and expand on character development, but I realized it had made the story terribly too long to be just a one-shot and so I decided to break it into two parts instead.
This story contains major spoilers for Laura's story in Unlimited Saga.
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Power SurgeChapter 1
The Clockwork of Conflagration
Flames crackled quietly in the center of their little campsite, tiny cinders hopping off the wood they fed on only to roll in the dust and fade away. She felt the cinders too as she sat there, her pale eyes distant, but unlike the ones that found themselves being blown away by the wind, these flickers became fires of their own. And it wasn't until recently that these flickers came together, a mass of flames that only grew with consumption.
Meat from a beast they felled earlier roasted slowly above their campfire, and blonde mage girl in purple asked the brunette in yellow when it would be finished. Another chunk of wood was thrown inside the pit, and the flames welcomed the addition to their evening meal, consuming it within their fiery maws.
"In a while, Judy," Michelle answered. "It hasn't even browned yet."
Laura's eyes stared on in a state of contemplation, reflecting the image of the flames devouring the hapless piece of wood. Her elbows were propped on her thighs and her fingers were laced together in between the space just below her nose. Her mind was adrift a sea of thoughts, too focused on them to consider the wafting aroma that came from the meat Michelle roasted or the repetitive, metallic shing of the Anubito's whetstone meeting the blade of his black axe. She never really was the type to be easily distracted by anything; now was no different. Her attention remained affixed on a single thought throughout the entire day, bringing her blood from a simmer to a boil, fueling the fire, so much that every time a monster came in their path she struck it down without mercy:
Galeos.
