“If you don’t turn away now, you will surely die right here.” With these words, the little girl in front of her switched away, leaving a huge knife stabbed into the ground in her place.

Nonsense!

Falco raises his sights on the citadel doors and gateway. To his sides, the water level was already a couple of meters over him. The firewall that was keeping the water away kept getting smaller and smaller. But nevertheless, a door and a wall won’t keep himself out of winning this battle.

Turning around, another story was painted before him though. Many of his soldiers laid on the floor, unable to move, many of them already dead. Others, trying their hardest to keep the firewall going. Further back, he can see how many soldiers were running back to the city already, deserting their duties. No electrical tamer on sight either.

With great heaviness on his heart, Falco yelled a retreat. Taking the front of the group that stood with him, he began to fire tame and moving forward, in direction of the bay. In his way, the bodies of his soldiers, men and women. A little more ahead, the beheaded body of his general, laid on the ground. A sense of pressure raised from his chest as he felt the rage lash out in his arms and head. His blue Aura flared vividly, and the soldiers with him gave a wry smile to one another, hope that they could get away from here.

The light of the firewall lighted the water surrounding them even more so, revealing a dark blue surrounding them. While they were half the way through, something weird reached Falco’s ears: A cry, as if of a newborn, could be heard all around them. Looking around, Falco could see the soldiers also looking around, searching for the source of the cry. In doing so, he didn’t notice right in front of him when it happened, but when he turned again in front of him, he was greeted with an eerie sight: The dark blue waters suddenly were dark, crimson red.

The sight of these waters packed a punch to the gut for Falco, but he couldn’t understand why. Looking at the dark crimson waters, sweat started to build up all over his body as a tremble started to shake him in his entirety. The injury of his right shoulder, where he had his right arm, started to hurt once again, even when it has been years since the last time it brought him pain. Looking again into the dark crimson waters, the cry suddenly was inside his head, making him relive the memories of a time now passed when he stood there in front of that large man with large sideburns, his father, and his white Aura… and his black flames. Now the image of them standing in front of each other, now images of the fight itself, now images of him having struck down his own father, while his father’s body, now in the ground, burnt with these black flames.

That image, the black flames dancing, almost as if they were happy, or mocking him. Now he sees the same black flames, forming a flowing pillar, now taking the image of a person, now that person embracing him, sending him into unspeakable pain, bringing him back into the real world.

Polsen had reached him.

Falco takes a couple of deep breaths, as he is trying to assess his situation, and break free from Polsen’s embrace, though Polsen manages to grab his shoulder with its right hand. The flames from the contact heat to extreme temperatures the air that is entering his lungs. His heart, pounding like those times in his memories. The grasp of the Cinder in front of him keeps him in place, as he feels how the Aura is leaving him, how his body is already going numb at the black like lava flames touch. Putting attention to his ears, he can hear the sound of his soldiers screams.

Putting most of his Aura outside of him at once, and enhancing himself with it, he is able to break free from Polsen’s grasp, taking some steps back in the process. Is in this moment that he is able to give Polsen a good look: A humanoid-like body, with its lower half being lost in a black like lava substance, and his arms were large and thin. Wearing silver armor all the way to his gloves, he has the hilt of a two-handed sword in one hand. And in its head, wearing a helmet, from where only black smoke can be seen, and two burning fires in the shapes of eyes. Giving the hilt of the sword a swing, more of this black like lava substance comes from it, taking the shape of a two-handed sword.

Taking another couple of steps back, Falco can see another Aura he recognizes at the end of the bay, accompanied by many more Auras.

“Everyone that can fight, around me!” Falco yells as Polsen starts walking slowly forward. Many soldiers come to the side of Falco, while he yells another order “Three teams! The ones with me stay and fight the Cinder, the other two take the opening and escape!”

Separating into three teams, with Falco accompanied by two other soldiers at the center, they plunge forward, taking Polsen head-on. For Falco, and anyone in the country of Aeris, Cinders are something common to deal with, all nasty poor bastards. But, he has never seen one like the one that is standing in front of him.

What could make a man wish so strongly that he would be transformed to such an unnatural degree?

Taking Polsen head-on, Falco steps forward, thrusting his spear into him. The spear rebounds from the armor but still makes Polsen fall back. With fire taming, the two soldiers with Falco then take one the left, the other the right, and with fire taming, throw their fire serpents against him.

It was of no use. The fire, before it touched Polsen, was siphoned into his helmet, as if water escaped through a crack on a basin.

Physical strength it is then!

Falco throws himself against Polsen. Falco isn’t strange of facing Cinders in the past. He has had his struggles with them, but once you fought three or four, you could tell that each Cinder followed a pattern, some sort of behavior… and certainly, intelligent behavior isn’t one of them, as taking Falco by surprise, Polsen raises his large left arm, stopping with it Falco’s momentum forward, before the spear could reach him. The arms were larger than what he previously anticipated.

Raising Falco into the air, Polsen smashes him a couple of times against the ground. Raising him once more into the air, Falco manages to see that the other two teams managed to get to the bay safely, alongside all the other Auras. Seeing besides him though, his face went stiff with rage: None of the soldiers of his team was there alongside him. Looking once again up, he could see them, running alongside the firewall towards the bay.

The last words that his father gave to him resonated in his head. That time, he wasn’t sure what he meant with them, but right now, he felt them like a curse: You and I, we aren’t so different. All the people praising you now, will turn their back on you and leave you to die when you need them the most.

Can’t switch either… why? Why?…

Soon, the reason didn't matter. The burning sensation on his shoulder has grown lighter. Falco knows very well what this means: Aura depletion. Polsen has almost devoured all of his Aura. His body goes limp, as in his mind, another image comes forward: His general now beheaded a couple of meters behind him. The little time he spent with her, were like no other he has lived in a long time.

What a stubborn prideful man… at least I should have asked her name.

A wry smile appears on Falco’s face, as Polsen drives his two-handed sword right through him, impaling him.

Suddenly, Falco felt like he was floating. No rage to be seen, no disappointment either, neither the rush of battle. Once again, as the memories of his life appear in his mind, he stops at one when he was a small kid. He remembers being at a hallway alongside his mother. They were waiting, although he can’t remember what. Somewhat though, he remembers that his kid self did. Without warning, a door at the end of the hallway opened, smashing against the wall because of the strength with which it has been opened. From there, a man donning a full-body black armor appears, followed by other two.

As the man reaches where the kid Falco was, her mother stands in front of him. He can see her mother’s lips moving, but he can remember the words, nor the voice. Then, her mother moves from the black-armored man’s way, to face the kid and see him from head to toes. The kid Falco trembles. The man is quite imposing to him, looking down on him. Falco downcast his eyes.

A snort reaches Falco’s ears, followed by feeling a large hand patting his head.

“I like him.” Falco can hear “He looks healthy and shows promise.”

Falco can feel how his entire body suddenly calmed down. His mind focusing entirely on these words.

“Don’t disappoint me, son.” Falco hears again, as he feels the hand leaving him and the black-armored man starts to walk away. Falco raises his eyes, only to see his large back walking further away from him. Falco is still floating.

As the memory stays here, Falco snorts. Why is it that, in his death, of all the things he could remember, this is what comes to his mind most prominently. Yet, he understood completely why, why little and bigger Falco still have memories of this event in his heart, as the last vestiges of life abandon him.

Black flames surround the now lifeless body of Falco, enveloping him. Moments later, the flames go away, taking the body in its entirety with them. Polsen, surrounded now by Cinders, lets a cry escape, as he turns towards the bay, and starts moving forward, while he is enveloped in the crimson waters of the styx sea.