With tightly coiled springs that snap for anything

[knew_anyway]

Characters: Nathaniel (knew_anyway), Rei (marsfireignite), The Animus (adstring_npc), and later on, Bartimaeus (imakefootnotes)
When: Saturday, Jan 7th, morning
Where: An abandoned warehouse
Rating: R for character death, gore, lots of fire, and some general 'oh shit'
Summary: Nathaniel finally discovers the name of the Fire and summons it with Rei, in an attempt to make Adstringendum a better

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[marsfireignite]

She had gone to her circle, quiet, and transformed -- Mars was not going to take any precautions during the summoning process and though she kept her arms crossed across her chest, she was tense, and ready to fire at any given moment that something went wrong.

Not that it would. This was foolproof, as had been assured to her countless times, but her eyes remained hardened and cold on the circle itself, her breathing even, perfectly calm and collected.

Inside, she was terrified. But she didn't let an ounce of that show, save for a slight catch of breath when Nathaniel spoke the name of the Animus.

[adstring_npc]

There was no wait this time. No pause, no reluctant gathering of energies on the other side of the world

[knew_anyway]

Nathaniel wasn't expecting the sudden motion, and it took him by surprise, but he held firm, in awe at the full extent of what he had summoned. It was some sort of being, yes- fire, earth, metal, and all of it seemed to move on its own, pressing outward, fighting the barriers of the circle almost before Nathaniel finished the summoning. The sudden drain from calling over such an immense creature hit him, and Nathaniel found himself gasping for breath, fighting to both to keep the monster in the pentacle, and to combat his own fatigue.

He didn't think that the attack would be so fast- almost didn't see the movement of the fire until it hit him, lancing through, tearing the scream from his throat and cutting it off with the sick sound of boiling blood. An awful stench of charred flesh rose from his body, consciousness bleeding out of him as the pain built up faster, faster, until his body could withstand it no longer

[marsfireignite]

"Stop the -- !"

But before Mars could finish her command to cease the ritual (because this was wrong, and it was massive, and the energy and self-destructive force that had burst from nothingness was overpowering -- it had already been done. And for a split second, she didn't do anything. She couldn't do anything. She stood there, frozen, eyes wide and heart lodged in her throat, unable to speak, because he was almost certainly dead.

It had happened so quickly that she hadn't been able to do a single thing to stop it.

The moment of frozen terror only lasted for half a second -- perhaps less -- before something inside her head snapped into place, and Mars swung an arm to her side, casting the fire that had fallen near her away, eyes focused on the being in front them before her eyes shifted to Aelia. Though Nathaniel was dead -- was he? was there even a chance for him to be saved? he'll come back, death in Adstringendum is impermanent at best, he'll just come back, there's no point in letting yourself be crippled, save your tears