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Blue ceruleum smoke covered the battlefield. The soldiers that formed the front line were mostly on the ground, groaning quietly or else completely still. Some new weapon from the Garleans’ side had come from above and put a hole right through the Immortal Flames’ guard, splintering their defense. Faceless masked Garleans were pouring through, gunblades glinting dully in their hands.
Archon had not been hit directly, but had been thrown backward to hand hard on his back. He coughed and sat up, then coughed again, uncertain what had happened or where his squad was. This was not how it was supposed to go. Nomimi was having a coughing fit a couple fulms away and he could hear someone who was probably Big Birch swearing up a storm behind him. That became less important as the enemy swiftly appeared through the smoke like specters of war.
Archon’s eyes widened. He scrambled to his knees and fumbled for his rapier. In front of him, Nomimi’s coughing abruptly cut off with a small cry as a blade pierced through her armor. He nearly had his sword out of its scabbard when a gunblade swept it out of his hand.
Birch roared and started forward but got only a few steps before a sharp shot made Archon flinch. Another, and then the sound of something heavy hitting the ground behind him. The soldier ahead of Archon looked down at him, unreadable behind the mask that filtered away their choking smoke. He raised the gunblade.
He was going to die. Archon was full sure of that fact. There was no other possible outcome. But he blinked, and suddenly, somehow, found himself standing in an entirely different position, with an unfamiliar figure kneeling before him.
Not an unfamiliar position. An unfamiliar perspective.
Behind the kneeling Garlean Archon could see Big Birch’s body, facedown on the ground, two red stains on his jacket. He looked back to the soldier in front of him. The soldier still held his gunblade, but Archon could see his own disarmed sword lying on the dirt a fulm away. He was standing exactly where this soldier had stood not a moment ago, and the soldier knelt where he had been.
How?
Then a splitting pain erupted in Archon's head. Suddenly there was too much of him, too many. Voices that weren't voices that weren't his, in his mind. Too loud, too much. He clutched his head, squeezing his eyes shut, and did not notice the ephemeral flames snaking around his body.
The Garlean soldiers did.
“He’s one of them! Kill him! Kill him now!” Both the soldier in front of Archon and his compatriots moved in, but a fireball erupted from the au ra’s form, taking the unfortunate soldiers and the bodies of his former squad with it.
Moments later in its place was a huge figure. It was difficult to describe, and even more difficult to understand from within it. Suddenly Archon could see too much, could see everything, before him and behind him. His body was strange, alien, and burned with energy and light. The battlefield had become so small as he hovered above it. He did not understand what had happened, but felt a primal need to stop the chaos, to put it to order and make it right–and to do that, he could burn.
***
Ul’dah was not expecting to see its patron god appear on the field of battle, but it was nothing if not a city that took every advantage.
The fight had turned to chaos. Flaming meteors rained from the sky and soldiers ran blindly in panic, whether back to their own or into the arms of the enemy, it was difficult to tell through the smoke, which was only made thicker by patches of fire. Newly formed craters tripped some, sending them sprawling on top of the last unfortunate to have fallen, both of them choking on smoke and flame. Sworn countries and stated enemies lost importance in a mad dash to simply get away as people fled the field.
After the flames faded and the screaming stopped, the Eikonic presence shimmered and dissipated, and a body dropped heavily to the ground. The Immortal Flames pressed in, surrounded it, and bore it back to the city with haste.