“Amber…” As I started into the tigress’ bright-purple eyes, I asked “Maybe I should’ve called you crystal, ebony or violet instead… Your fur isn’t even orange anymore. Puriel is kinda old fashioned too.”

The two of us were laying on the golden beach at the border between Agar and Lum. I was trying to reach out to Yuri, Ailyn and Lorelei all day, but it was like there was a barrier preventing me from extending my perception outside of Salvation. Possibly Luna’s doing, but I suspected that it could have also been Terra as well.

“Never call me Violet…” Amber solemnly growled, “In my Pride, we had a legend about a Demon God named Violet, who devoured the Heavens… She had the head of a rat and the body of a serpent… Her maw could swallow the entire sky.”

“Fuck me, I know that brat.” I sighed, murmuring “In another life… She was my daughter. I named her Jasmine Jade, though I usually called her JJ for short. Some shit happened… No, a lot of shit happened. JJ was a beautiful, adorable little girl once upon a time. But innocence fades and corruption grows. She sacrificed everything for power, even ‘me’. It didn’t turn out very well for anyone involved though, especially JJ. Also known as Violet, Chaos, Chaotica and a slew of other similar monikers…”

Of course, she didn’t even understand most of what I said. Hell, she probably wasn’t even listening. Unless I spoke to her telepathically or through her own ‘language’ Amber always tended to ignore me. That was fine though. It was an embarrassing story… About my horrible parenting skills in the past.

A life where I cared more about revenge, than raising my own daughter. I would blame Iris but… She’s just another version of me after all. Just like Leviathan, Devourer of Worlds… I literally ate entire planets and even universes. If you’re around long enough, you’ll do just about everything imaginable. No matter how terrible or amazing it might sound, that’s just an inevitability. Yet, there’s always more.

Once you figure out what it is that you truly desire, you just do that over and over again in different ways. Cliche isn’t necessarily bad. We form these ‘cliches’ because we keep doing the things we like, simply altering the plot a little and seeing what happens.

“Michael…” Amber purred in my ear, “When we have cubs together… Will they look like you or me?”

I snickered, rubbing my face against hers, before growling “We can have Yuri make them however we want… Do you want them to look like me or you?”

Before she could respond, I felt like my head was going to explode… And I wasn’t the only one. Amber roared out in agony, as she rolled around on the sandy beach. I struggled to stand up, but it felt like the ground was about to collapse beneath me.

“Gah~!” There was a deafening bellow, that sounded like fucking planet stubbed her toe. Then I could feel a massive explosion of mana in the northern distance. It was so powerful that even thousands of miles away, we were still able to see the blinding light in the northern sky. Of course, it helped that it was night time.

It felt like my skin was on fire… Which is a sensation I’m way too familiar with. However, it wasn’t really ‘me’ that was feeling that. It was Hithu and Lum. The two World Trees were rooted deep into the planet’s crust, so it wasn’t that surprising when magma ‘tickled’ them from time to time. It usually wouldn’t be a problem, because they were resistant enough to ignore it… Except that Agar had been dried and withered for almost a thousand years.

I kicked off of the ground and soared up into the air a few dozen meters, then created some air out of my feel in order to give myself lift. After less than a minute, I was a mile above Salvation and able to see off the southern edge… My vision was amazing, so I could actually see the blackened part of Lorthon Forest. I watched lava burst up from the dry and cracked ground, before subsequently igniting everything.

“Fuck!” I shouted, witnessing the roots of Agar bursting into flames. It was a swift and merciless process, but even the trunk was burning before long. It was a nightmare. So pretty much like any other day for me.

“Amber! Snap outta it! I need your help!” I eventually floated down to the surface of Salvation and shouted to the burning purple tigress, who was turning the sandy beach into glass. After I gave her some telepathic mental support, she was able to regain her senses, though that only made her angrier.

“Michael! What happen?!” She screamed in an amazingly low voice, then started flying after me.

I telepathically explained “Listen Amber… I’m sorry, but we have to make a sacrifice now. If we do nothing, all of Lorthon Forest will burn down… Including the World Trees. Which means that this entire continent will probably become a wasteland. We can’t allow that to happen. I need you to take control of Lum. I’ll control Hithu. You’ll manipulate the fire and put it out directly, while cooling down the lava as much as possible. I’ll focus on using Hithu’s roots and branches to wrap around Agar. If we work together, then we should be able to do this pretty easily.”

The fiery tigress growled “Don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll try!”

“For fuck’s sake Amber! It’s not that complicated! You just need to take control of a giant World Tree real fast and put out some fires! Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through it once we get into place. But first we have to actually integrate with the trees. So I’ll take you to Lum first and get you situated. Then I’ll head over to Hithu, though I can just teleport there and it won’t take that long. Actually, we can teleport there now. Touch that Waypoint Pine and think about the ‘heart’ of the tree. You’ll get there eventually.”

Yep… It went about as well as you would expect. Okay, it wasn’t ‘that’ bad… Anyway, the moral of the story is that you shouldn’t trust a pyromaniac to put out a forest fire.