They accelerated down the slope, crossing the distance in seconds. The adventurers—a motley crew consisting of a heavily armored man with a chipped shield, a wiry man clutching a staff crackling with feeble lightning, a woman firing arrows from behind a boulder, and a lithe woman slashing desperately at any chitinous appendage that ventured too close—hadn't yet registered their approach.

The Ankhegs, however, spun in agitated circles, sensing the high-speed encroachment. Up close, the creatures were significantly less appetizing than their distant appearance had suggested.

Each was roughly the size of a draft horse, but built like someone had crossed a lobster with a particularly aggressive earthworm. Their carapaces gleamed with an oily sheen that reflected the afternoon sun in nauseating rainbow patterns, while mandibles clicked with the sound of scissors cutting through bone.

"Battle plan?" Ash asked calmly, as if inquiring about dinner preferences.

"Hit them hard, hit them fast, don't get hit back," Ember said. "Standard aggressive formation. Pyra front and center, Kindle and I flanking. Ash, provide cover and support."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "And me? Window dressing?"

"Defensive posture," Ember instructed. "Keep an eye on the adventurers."

The words had barely left her mouth before Pyra launched herself forward with a battle cry that sounded suspiciously like "DIRT LOBSTER TAKEDOWN!" Her flames erupted from orange to electric blue, the heat creating a shimmering distortion in the air around her that made her appear to flicker like a mirage.

The nearest Ankheg barely had time to click its mandibles in confusion before a conflagration engulfed its face. The creature reared back, emitting a high-pitched keening noise as its eyestalks charred and popped like overripe grapes in a campfire. The smell hit everyone simultaneously—burnt seafood mixed with melting plastic and something that might have been very old cheese.

"Oh, that's revolting," one of the adventurers gagged.

Kindle darted left, golden flames wreathing her arms as she executed a perfect spinning leap over another creature's pincers. Her boots connected with the Ankheg's head segment, and she pushed off, using the creature's own momentum to launch herself toward its partner. "These things smell like burnt cabbage!" she called out, sounding far too delighted by this discovery.

"Focus on immobilizing them, not analyzing their aromatic profile," Cinder called back, positioning herself between the battle and the stunned adventurers, who had frozen in place at the sudden appearance of five identical flame-haired women decimating creatures that had been on the verge of turning them into an early lunch.

The swordsman's jaw had gone slack beneath his helmet, his shield arm dropping to his side as he watched Ember move in a blur of orange light. Her crimson flames cut through the hard carapace of the largest Ankheg like a heated knife through butter, revealing the pale, wet flesh beneath.

"Target the joint between head and thorax," she called out, her voice steady despite moving fast enough to leave afterimages. "Soft tissue there!"

The adventurers, recovering from their shock, rallied. The swordsman with the shield charged forward, his blade finding purchase in a wound Kindle had created. The lightning mage's spells suddenly seemed more effective, crackling along the creatures' wet innards exposed by Pyra's assault. Sparks jumped between the Ankheg's antennae, and the creature convulsed as electrical current found pathways through its nervous system.

"We make an excellent team!" the archer cheered, an arrow from her bow finding its mark in an Ankheg's melted eye socket. The shaft sank deep with a wet squelching sound that made everyone wince.

"We're just passing through," Ember replied, ducking under a pincer swipe that would have taken her head off at the shoulders.

The fight was going almost embarrassingly well.

Three of the five Ankhegs already lay twitching in expanding pools of their own ichor—a yellowish fluid that bubbled and hissed where it touched grass. The fourth was retreating, half its legs severed by the combined efforts of Kindle and the swordsman, leaving trails of that same foul-smelling ichor as it dragged itself backward through the dirt.

The remaining adventurers were getting their confidence back. The mage had moved up to provide closer support, his lightning spells arcing between his fingers before launching toward wounded creatures. The woman with the sword was breathing hard but grinning, her blade dripping with alien blood.

"Never seen anything like that coordination," the swordsman panted, using his shield to block a dying Ankheg's final swipe. "You ladies fight like you share the same mind."

"Something like that," Ash murmured, her smoke providing cover as Pyra delivered a finishing blow to the largest creature.

Which, of course, was precisely when Cinder got cocky.

She stood with arms crossed, watching the others with the smug satisfaction of someone who'd been right about how easy this would be but was too tactful to say "I told you so" out loud. Her flames had settled into their usual controlled burn—hot enough to be impressive, contained enough to avoid setting the grassland ablaze.

The wounded Ankheg was dragging itself in her general direction, leaving that disgusting trail of ichor and making pathetic clicking sounds. Hardly a threat worth her full attention.

When the creature suddenly surged forward with its remaining functional legs, she didn't bother stepping aside.

"Amateur hour," she muttered, raising one hand and summoning a controlled blast of amber flame that scorched the creature's face. The heat struck chitin and immediately began cooking the flesh beneath, filling the air with more of that seafood-and-plastic stench.

The Ankheg reeled back, mandibles clicking furiously—but instead of retreating or dying like a sensible monster, it tilted its head back and emitted a high-pitched whistle that would have shattered glass had there been any within half a mile.

The sound cut through the afternoon air like a blade, making everyone's teeth ache and causing the other adventurers to clap their hands over their ears. It was the sort of sound that bypassed conscious hearing and went straight to the part of the brain that handled panic responses.

The ground beneath Cinder's feet trembled.

Her smug expression had just enough time to transform into a look of dawning horror before the earth exploded upward, showering everyone with clods of dirt and pebbles.

Four more Ankhegs erupted from hidden burrows, their carapaces caked with soil and their mandibles spread wide. They surrounded her in a living fence of clicking mandibles and waving antennae, each one larger than the surface creatures had been.

"Oh, come on," Cinder sighed, the very picture of inconvenienced annoyance rather than mortal terror. "This is just excessive."

The burrow-dwellers were different from their surface cousins—bulkier, with thicker armor and mandibles that looked capable of shearing through steel. Their movements were more coordinated too, as if they'd practiced this exact ambush scenario.

She whirled to face the nearest threat, hands already wreathed in flames that painted her face in amber shadows—but the creature that had summoned reinforcements wasn't finished with surprises. It reared back, abdomen pulsing obscenely like a bellows being worked, then projectile-vomited a stream of viscous green liquid directly at her.

Time seemed to slow as four pairs of identical eyes watched in horror.

The liquid moved through the air like molten glass. It caught the sunlight as it arced toward Cinder, shimmering with iridescent colors that gave it the appearance of a jewel rather than something expelled from the depths of a monster's digestive tract.

"Watch out!" the adventurers yelled, though Cinder would have preferred more specific instructions. Watch out for what? The vomit itself? The monstrosity that had ejected it?

She managed to partly dodge the stream, throwing herself sideways, feet leaving the ground as she tried to twist away from the trajectory of the spittle.

But "partly" proved woefully inadequate as the liquid splashed across her left side, coating her from shoulder to hip in caustic green slime.

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For one heartbeat, nothing happened. The liquid clung to her clothing and skin like particularly aggressive tree sap, steaming slightly in the afternoon air.

Then her skin began to bubble.

"That's... unfortunate," she managed to say, looking down at her dissolving arm with the academic interest of someone observing a moderately engaging science experiment.

Her voice remained steady, but the flames around her remaining hand flared brighter—not from conscious control, but from the shock of watching her own flesh liquefy.

Fabric dissolved first, followed by skin that simply melted away like candle wax. Muscle and bone followed in rapid succession, creating gaps in her torso that revealed internal organs before they too succumbed to the chemical assault.

Ember screamed her name, already running toward her—but too late.

Cinder's expression shifted from surprise to resignation to something almost like exasperated amusement as her body quite literally melted before their eyes. Her left arm separated from her torso and hit the ground with a wet splashing sound, followed by chunks of her shoulder and ribs.

"You have got to be kidding—" were her final words before the other Ankhegs spat more acid onto what remained of her body, reducing it to an unrecognizable pile of smoking sludge that quickly burst into guttering flames and vanished on the wind.

The silence that followed lasted for a few seconds before Pyra's flames erupted from orange to white to blue, her normally cheerful face twisted into a mask of rage that would have sent demons scurrying for cover.

"NOBODY MELTS MY—uh—SISTER!"

What happened next couldn't properly be called a battle. It was more like watching a natural disaster that had taken personal offense at some giant insects.

The plains around them became briefly indistinguishable from the business end of a volcano. Heat poured off Pyra in waves that distorted the air for hundreds of feet in every direction.

Grass withered and blackened, the very earth cracked from thermal stress, and the Ankhegs responsible for Cinder's demise charred in place, their mandibles clicking in what might have been agony had anyone present been capable of hearing anything over the roar of fire that engulfed them.

Ember and Kindle kept the adventurers behind a protective wall of heat, shielding them from Pyra's wrath even as the superheated air stung their eyes and forced them to shield their faces.

The Ankhegs crumbled in on themselves like charcoal briquettes at the end of a long cookout, while the ones that had plagued the adventurers met similar fates.

Ash kept the fires from spreading further afield, her powers cancelling out the heat and choking the life from hungry flames before they could feast on the countryside.

When Pyra finally burned herself out and the flames subsided, nothing remained of the monsters except for ash and a few pieces of melted carapace that cracked underfoot like seashells on a beach.

Kindle fell to her knees beside the spot where Cinder had stood, prodding at the blackened earth with a stick she'd found somewhere.

"Not again," she groaned, her usual enthusiasm replaced by weary frustration. "We literally just got over this with Pyra!"

The adventurers approached cautiously, their expressions caught between gratitude for the rescue and horror at witnessing what they assumed was a tragic death.

The swordsman removed his helmet, revealing a weathered face marked by years of outdoor living and too many close calls.

"Your companion," he said, placing a consoling hand on Kindle's shoulder. His voice carried the rough sympathy of someone who'd lost comrades before. "I'm so sorry. She died saving our lives."

"Oh, she's fine," Kindle said, waving a dismissive hand even as she continued poking at the ashy remains. "Well, not fine. She's technically dead. But temporarily."

Four pairs of human eyes widened in synchronized alarm.

"What my companion means," Ember interjected smoothly, shooting Kindle a warning look, "is that we have a healing technique that revives the fallen. We're in mourning, not denial."

"She melted," the lightning mage pointed out, somewhat unnecessarily. He was a thin man with prematurely gray hair and the sort of nervous energy that came from handling dangerous magic on a regular basis. "Into a puddle. Which then caught fire and blew away in the wind."

"Yes, that tracks with previous experience," Ash confirmed, her matter-of-fact tone making the statement even more unsettling. "Though I must say, dissolution via acid presents a novel reintegration challenge compared to Pyra's explosive disincorporation."

The adventurers exchanged looks of utter bewilderment, tinged with a hint of 'should we be running away right now?'

The archer—a compact woman with calloused fingers and the sort of steady gaze that came from years of hitting small targets at large distances—cleared her throat. "Forgive me, but are you suggesting your friend will somehow... return from being completely destroyed?"

"Look, she'll be fine," Pyra insisted, her rage already fading into impatience. The air around her was still shimmering with residual heat, making her appear to flicker like a flame. "We just need to—"

She paused, a peculiar expression crossing her face. Her eyes went slightly unfocused, as if she were listening to something only she could hear. Then her posture shifted subtly—shoulders squaring, mouth setting in a line that was distinctly more sardonic than her usual enthusiastic grin.

"Oh, there she is."

The other three felt it simultaneously—a warm presence unfurling within their shared consciousness, but not Cinder's voice or thoughts. Instead, her analytical nature began bleeding through their mental connection like ink through water.

Ember found herself cataloguing the tactical flaws in their recent performance. Kindle started mentally calculating the precise angle of acid trajectory that had caught Cinder off-guard. Ash began developing a more systematic approach to creature identification protocols.

"Oh good, the gang's all here," Ember sighed, pressing a hand to her temple as Cinder's dry sarcasm colored her own mental patterns. "Well, minus one physical form."

"Um," the archer ventured, watching their faces cycle through expressions that suggested intense internal processing, "are you all... well?"

"Define 'well,'" Kindle replied, though her usual cheerful tone now carried an edge of analytical skepticism that belonged to someone else entirely. "We just watched our fifth get melted into—" She paused, considering her word choice with uncharacteristic care. "—a chemically reduced state, and now we're experiencing personality redistribution effects."

The swordsman took a step backward.

"Perhaps you'd better explain—" he began, but Ember cut him off with a raised hand. The gesture was sharper than her usual diplomatic movements, tinged with Cinder's no-nonsense efficiency.

"No time. Guild contract, urgent deadline, you understand." She gave the adventurers a polite bow that somehow managed to be both respectful and dismissive. "We need to keep moving if we want to reach Ebran before lunch."

"Ebran?" The mage's eyebrows shot up. "That's two days' journey on a fast mount."

"Half an hour if you're us," Kindle grinned, though the expression now held a calculating quality that suggested she was mentally timing their route and factoring in terrain variables. "Now, if you'll excuse us—"

"Wait!" the archer blurted out. "At least tell us who you are, so we can spread word of your heroism—and your companion's sacrifice."

Ember hesitated, torn between the urgent need to be gone and the reluctance to give these strangers any information about them.

Their provisional Guild status was precarious enough without adding wild stories about women who came back from the dead. The hesitation felt different now—more strategic, less emotional.

Before she could form a properly vague reply, Kindle stepped forward and struck a pose that somehow managed to imply both heroic grandeur and smug self-satisfaction. Her golden flames flared dramatically around her, creating the sort of theatrical effect that belonged on recruitment posters.

"We," she declared, indicating the four remaining women and gesturing vaguely at the spot where Cinder had dissolved, "are the Blaze Girls!"

There was a long, awkward pause.

The wind whistled across the blackened grass. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called. The human adventurers stood frozen in various stages of bewilderment.

"Blaze... Girls?" the swordsman repeated slowly, as if doubting his hearing.

"Yes!" Kindle chirped, apparently oblivious to the profound silence her announcement had created. "You know, because we're girls, and we have fire powers? It's a multi-layered pun." She nudged Ember in the ribs. "Epic team name, right?"

"Yes," Ember said through gritted teeth, while simultaneously running a mental cost-benefit analysis of team name selection that definitely hadn't originated from her own thought patterns. "Epic."

Pyra's expression had shifted into something that looked distinctly unimpressed—an analytical frown that sat strangely on her usually enthusiastic features. Ash tilted her head thoughtfully, as if considering the tactical implications of brand recognition versus operational security.

"Is she... different now?" the mage asked quietly, noticing the change in their demeanor.

"We all are," Ash replied, her philosophical calm now tinged with something more pragmatic. "Temporary redistribution of essential characteristics."

Before Kindle could further jeopardize their clandestine status by perhaps offering to sign autographs, Ember snapped her fingers—a gesture that carried more authority than usual. "Back to the run. Chop chop, girls."

As they resumed their high-speed jog across the plains, leaving the bemused adventurers—and the sizzling Ankheg carcasses—behind, Pyra sighed loudly. The sound carried undertones of exasperation that belonged to someone with considerably less patience for naming conventions.

"I mean, it's not like 'Phoenix Force' was taken, right? But nooo, you all said it was too obvious..."

"And 'Blaze Girls' is the height of subtlety?" Ash inquired, her mild tone now carrying a sharper analytical edge. "Allowing for linguistic drift and semantic variability, of course."

"At least 'Blaze Girls' won't get us arrested on sight," Kindle reminded her, settling into the steady rhythm that would carry them across the remaining distance to Ebran. Her usual bouncy enthusiasm was still there, but tempered with tactical awareness that made her movements more efficient. "As far as aliases go, it's just the right balance between memorable and absurd to throw off suspicion."

"You realize that creates a rhyme scheme with approximately fourteen different tavern songs about questionable life choices," Ember commented, Cinder's dry humor filtering through her own voice. "That's the level we've sunk to."

The running helped stabilize their shared consciousness.

Cinder's personality traits settled into something more manageable—still distinctly present in their thought patterns, but no longer demanding constant attention. Her analytical nature provided a steady undercurrent of tactical observations that felt almost normal.

Almost.

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