• Ourboros peered at Pheonix through the crystalline veil that enveloped her like an aura. It had been too long a period devoid of her expressions; her laughter seemed like a memory he could never reconcile.
    He set his hand against the cool surface of the ice. He could feel her rekindled heartbeat through the many layers that cocooned her. A smile started to lace his lips. He leaned forward a bit, and brushed his lips against the shell. It sent shivers through him; not from the cold, but from his desire for her flesh, of which was foreign soil to him.
    'Ourboros,' came a voice at his side, 'tarry no longer. Her animation ends soon in a burst of heat that shall reunite the both of you as a pair in this ubiquitous war that wages on. Go to the front lines. I thirst.'
    He took a final glance back at the girl edged in frost, caressing her nude frame with his eyes. Then, he turned and left the temple, shaking under the weight of many stones raining down upon the roof. A single tear etched its path down his face, before spattering the last stone step as he drew his roaring sword and let a battle cry issue from his frosted lips.
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    Within the shaking temple, a tremor rang out. 'Twas the melody of a singing blade, that of Skadi, Goddess of Northern Cold, having finally wrought her vengeance upon the Warshipper girl known as the Blue Pheonix. A dagger clattered upon the stone floor, then vaporized itself, the Goddess re-materializing back to her humble abode in the North.
    The sound of steam cut through the still temples loud silence, then cracking.
    'The Blue Flames are kindled once more...'
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    The frozen orb that was a womb for the dormant Pheonix dwindled down into a sweltering puddle of what once was the flesh of Skadi's spell. The very core was she, held in a fetal position and emitting waves of white heat.
    She now lay unconscious in the pool of boiling water, a pale figure that shone in the tender sunlight that filtered through the windows cut into the temple walls. She stirred, her eyes blinked away the filmy glaze of sleep and she rose on her knees.
    Pheonix threaded her sultry fingers through her hair, a blue river of tresses that flowed about her, concealing only a fraction of her bare flesh.
    'Where am I?' she thought, wringing water from her hair, drenching her breasts with what waters bled from it. The clashing of weapons, the sounds of bone-chilling battle cries, the victorious whoops of the winning side. Memories flooded her of similar times to this, where she was among the conqueror, with Ourboros....
    "OURBOROS!" she yelled. It was his presence that had escaped her thoughts. Where had he gone off to?
    Out of the corner of her vision came a figure. A soldier of the enemy, a Re-Born, a soldier wrought through with controls and mechanics that rendered a corpse as a thoughtless vegetable used as a weapon. It had infiltrated the temple, and was searching about with computerized eyes for any signs of value. The grotesque beings line of vision came upon the naked frame of the beautiful Pheonix, her long hair contouring to her shapely adolescent body. The Re-Born inched foreward, raising his gun to a potential target to be made of her. While the soldiers efficiency on the battlefield was appallingly good, there was no surprise to the Blue Pheonix when it began to come at her. She stood, a battle stance locking her into readiness. The Re-Born's gun made a click as it took off the safety and began to fire at her. She was too fast for the gun, swerving this way and that, avoiding each bullet and coming closer to it with each dodge. She was a yard away when she sprang, her right hand casting the line of fire away from her and with her left she throttled it in the face, inches from the toothless gaping mouth that drooled in torrents.
    She freed her right hand and took hold of its throat and pulled. With ease, the flesh was pulled apart and the Re-Born beheaded, staining Pheonix with the thick clotted gore that had purchased its veins. She looked into its face, and saw what once was a human. Blind, bloodshot eyes that stared to the trembling ceiling of the temple, and a crooked nose, sallow cheeks edged with thick rolls of lard, and a long, stupidly gaping mouth pouring a river of overproduced saliva that still dripped from its baggy overhanging lip.
    Pheonix made a noise of disgust deep in her throat, and tossed away the dismembered head. It cracked and shattered on the floor like pottery.
    Now, at least, she was no longer naked; she wore the crimson sheen of a Warshipper who basked in the blood of her enemies.
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