Cyrus was in line with everyone else for roll call after exiting the vehicle. Behind the officer Cyrus could have sworn that he was seeing little wisps of fire as he paced back and forth in front of the student soldiers.
"Now despite this being your first time out, you need to remain vigilant at all times. You never know when the enemy could decide to strike. Have each other's backs." The officer in charge lectured.
Wherever the flames extinguished, mists began to form where they had been. There very real presence behind where the officer had paced. Cyrus stared in amazement as they began to take on a life of their own, slowly reaching out with tendrils blanketing the area behind the officer entirely.
Cyrus started to span through the different types of vision assistance available on his mask. Trying to focus on the wisps, while keeping his eyes on the Officer in front of him. He glanced around at his fellow student soldiers; none of them seemed to be phased by what he was seeing. None of them seemed to see what he saw. He rubbed at his eyes, but the mists around him started to divulge into movements, slowly forming the limbs of people that were running from one direction into another.
They were clashing, fighting in a battle. It seemed as if some form of spectral ghostly battle were taking place all around him. Some mist figures passing directly through his classmates and the officer. One side appeared to have more of the figures falling in battle than the other.
Just as they were being pushed out of his line of sight, the flames centered at the front of the losing side's front line. It began to grow and burn with intensity, the light was blinding and for the first time other people noticed his reaction.
"What are you doing, soldier? Why are you turning your face away?"
Cyrus simply looked back where the once wisps was now a fully formed demon wreathing in flame, and it spoke to him. "Will you accept a pledge of Chaos in exchange for me, lending you my power?" The voice came from the Ifrit but had a tri-tonal nature to it, making three different pitches with every syllable it spoke.
The officer was staring straight at Cyrus while he was looking to the right at the Ifrit, but before he could issue an order or get angry at him another student yelled, "Contact!"
All hell broke loose, officers and students alike were running in all directions ducking and looking for cover. A spray of machine gun fire tore through the front lines. The officer was struck in the shoulder before going down right in front of Cyrus.
"Get down! Get down!" another student soldier yelled as he grabbed Cyrus and pulled him to the ground.
A makeshift medical staging area was made behind the armored APC that they had driven out in. The rest of the students had formed a line along the ditch of the road. The attacking enemy was somewhere out in a field or the edge of the forest; they couldn't tell which. Several student soldiers yelled over top of each other:
"You need to get a handle on this situation!"
"Someone radio back to the school, we need backup!"
"Who's got the most medical training? We need a medic here!"
The Ifrit stood unfazed, still looking at Cyrus as he lay on the ground beneath the other student awaiting his answer.
"Sure.... yes! What are you? I'll do whatever you want, just give me the power to stop these bastards!" Cyrus yelled his reply.
Through the contract of Chaos my power will be yours to use at your command.
Immediately after the Ifrit spoke these lines, the mists that were standing facing each other like some ethereal spectral armies all turned towards Cyrus and rushed around him. As he breathed in under his mask he could feel the mists entering his lungs as their forms dissipated. His eyes burned and his skin itched all over. Quickly after the first mist was breathed in, all his muscles started to spasm from his fingertips and toes moving inward towards his chest. The fellow student soldier who was holding him down before started dragging him over to the medical staging area, assuming he must have been shot with how much he was groaning and whining in pain.
The students along the ditch were returning fire with the sidearms that they had been issued for this mission, but none of them had battle rifles or any other form of armament to fend off a well-equipped force. Which is what they seemed to be against.
"What the hell are they thinking bringing us out here? We got ambushed, man." One of the students who was wearing an African-looking mask said to the soldier who brought over Cyrus.
The soldier who brought over Cyrus responded, "Focus, we don't have time for thinking right now. It is time for acting. Get him help from the medic. I'm going to go join the fight, you all know I'm one of the better shots." He had a Japanese Oni-style looking mask.
Both of them stopped for a moment and stared at the red glow that was peeking under the edge of Cyrus's mask. Slowly the soldier that brought Cyrus over started to take off his mask. As he did, both of them were completely shocked and horrified. Cyrus had both of his eyes opened wide, sweat was beading down his brow and his eyes were glowing bright red. Neither of the irises or pupils were visible; his eyes were just entirely red.
As the battle raged on between them, the enemy that was clearly in the tree line had superior fire power. The student soldiers that had taken up positions across the ditch from the road mostly took cover, a disparity of the battle was becoming apparent.
"I'm out."
"I'm out too."
"Pass me another mag. I'm on my last one."
"I don't have any left."
The student soldiers said to each other during the battle.
The students were quickly finding that they were running out of ammunition. The enemy had kept them suppressed most of the time with machine gun fire. Most of them were certain they hadn't done anything more than shoot in their general direction. Most doubted if any of them had landed a single hit.
Just as they believed that all hope was lost, the machine gun fire stopped suddenly. One of them cautiously peered over the edge of the ditch towards the tree line, but as he did he heard the other soldiers behind him gasp. Cyrus was now standing with his mask off, eyes glowing red and a single hand held out in front of him.
In front of his hands what looked like molten rocks were being pulled up from the ground and began swirling. As more and more rocks became molten and added to the growing sphere, its centripetal speed increased and the color gradually moved from a dull orange toward a bright white.
Once the ball was roughly the same size as the APC that they had all come in, it quickly blasted out from Cyrus's hand towards the tree line. The speed and ferocity with which it shot out could be comparable to a shoulder-mounted rocket system usually used for something like defeating an armored vehicle. The concussive blast came first.
A wave that could be felt more than seen washed across the soldiers, flattening any who weren't already lying down. Trees and plant life whipped against the ground as it passed over them. The boom that it created would have deafened all of them if they didn't have their helmets on, offering at least a modicum of hearing protection.
The explosion that followed afterward was otherworldly. Not only flames but molten rock flew up from the tree-line engulfing everything in fire.
**
Back at the cafe the trio of friends was hurriedly following the crowd as they made their way to the nearest shelter.
"Man what do you think that was? Do you think this is an earthquake? It's got to be an earthquake right?"