Verina raised a scaled hand above her head just as a roaring pillar of searing flame descended from the sky, engulfing her completely.
Several demons standing too close were caught in the conflagration. The red-skinned, horned elvenoids were children of Fire, so much so that lesser flames would serve to heal rather than harm. Yet under this scorching blaze, they screamed as the blistering heat overwhelmed their natural resistances. The white-hot flames scorched the air itself, warping it with heat distortion. Waves of blistering pressure radiated outward, and the parched ground beneath splintered and crumbled, sending up sparks and clouds of burning dust.
Some staggered back, shielding their eyes. One figure remained motionless too long, and when he fell, he did so silently - a blackened outline disintegrating into ash before it ever reached the ground, the remnants whisked away on the rushing updraft. The floor beneath cracked open in a spiderweb of fractures, and fine ash lifted in spiralling columns around them.
Not far off, a female demon stood like a statue of fire and fury. She wore a breastplate gleaming with arcane runes that pulsed like burning embers. The lower half flowed into a silken robe with slits along the legs, fluttering wildly in the updrafts from the heat. A high-collared neckline of the same cloth framed her throat. Her arms were flung forward, the sleeves so long they nearly brushed the scorched floor. Her mouth was open in a wordless yell of exertion as tendrils of fire coiled around her and lashed the air.
Seconds passed.
The other demons limped back into formation around her. None dared speak, let alone reproach her reckless disregard for their lives. Instead, they fixed their gazes on the still-roaring inferno, tending their varied injuries with grim silence.
At last, the robed demoness sagged. With a final breath, she let her arms fall. The pillar of fire winked out - not fading, but extinguished, like a candle wick snuffed out between fingers.
And there Verina stood. Her arm was still raised. Her scales shimmered with heat.
But she was otherwise unharmed.
The gorgon smiled, revealing rows of serrated teeth, while the demoness and her fellows despaired.
"Good," she said, lowering her hand. "Very good." She laughed heartily.
"Now . . . it's my turn."
"Wait!" The horned demoness shouted desperately as Verina took a single step forward. "Stop! I can pay! Anything you want, just name your price!"
Verina paused. Her reptilian, vertically slit eyes observed the demoness hungrily, like a predator eyeing its prey.
"Your money means nothing to me," she responded with bone-chilling menace.
The demoness, born of fire and mistress of flames, shivered and whimpered.
Verina placed one hand on her hip, raised the other, and snapped her fingers. Two spatial rifts tore reality asunder, and her sisters, exact android replicas, stepped forth.
The demons watched in horror as the three Gorgons stood before them. One even threw down his weapon and ran. None cursed his name as they stood, knees shaking, and contemplated following his example. The demoness swallowed, but held her ground and prepared to meet her end.
Then Verina laughed.
"Kidding! I just wanted to try saying that. I saw it in an action holovid on a world I visited. It got exactly the reaction I was hoping for." She turned to address one of her sisters, while ignoring the demons' confusion. "Negotiate with these pissants for their surrender. Don't go easy on them."
The android, Verina Stheno, nodded and stepped forward in a non-threatening manner.
The demoness and her surviving soldiers watched her approach, caught between terror and fragile hope.
Verina walked away, leaving her sister to handle the boring negotiations. She sighed loudly and spoke as her other sister, the android Verina Euryale, fell into place beside her.
"This world isn't nearly the challenge I hoped for," Verina complained as they walked.
She glanced around, noting the dry, dusty earth and orange, fiery sky. Two suns burned brightly overhead, one noticeably larger than the other. There was little vegetation; instead, strange, rock-like formations speared upwards out of the ground, as numerous as a greener world might have grown trees.
She casually kicked a nearby large and imposing boulder. It shattered into a million pieces, the larger shards moving so fast they whistled through the air. But just as quickly they stopped, the cloud of fine dust and broken fragments halted in mid-air as if frozen in place. Then they reversed course and reformed into the boulder, whole and hale as if nothing had happened.
Verina pretended to ignore the fearful glances the demons shot her way, but a smirk touched her lips.
"We are still in the lower planes," Verina Euryale said. Some fragments from the shattered rock had headed her way, but she'd never even reacted, not even to blink. "Nothing here is likely to be a threat to you. Let alone the three of us together."
"I acknowledge your point," Verina said pensively. "Perhaps I am being too cautious. The tales of the worlds outside the Protectorate seem highly overrated."
"Do not become too hasty, however," Verina Euryale cautioned. "Several interplanar polities would test us sorely. Let alone the core worlds of the Delphic Tribunal."
Verina nodded absently. They walked a little further before Verina Euryale spoke again.
"Our . . . employers from our last job are still . . . displeased with our performance," she stated in a neutral tone of voice. But Verina caught the unspoken disapproval regardless.
"We fulfilled our bargain to the letter," Verina said with a click of her serpentine tongue against the inside of her sharpened teeth. "The Administrator is dead. It's not our fault the crazy idiot put some contingencies in place."
She turned to look at Verina Euryale and widened her eyes, her reptilian features striving to mimic the classic expression of elvenoid innocence. Then she laughed merrily as Verina Euryale shook her head.
"They want us to return to Palea and tear the Administrator's so-called Failsafe System apart," the android said instead.
"But of course!" Verina exclaimed with mock eagerness. Then her expression dropped with exaggerated sadness. "A new job needs a new bounty, though. We return only after they agree to our terms."
"They argue the job isn't done. The Apeiron Barrier still stands."
"We destroyed it." Verina raised a finger as if to illustrate a point. "Mostly. It would have fallen if the Failsafe System hadn't repaired it."
"They've threatened to complain to the Protectorate directly," the android warned.
Verina hesitated, gripped by a moment of genuine concern. Then the moment passed, and she shrugged.
"They are welcome to try."
Several minutes passed, with Verina idly destroying and remaking random bits of scenery. Then the other sister, Verina Stheno, joined them. Behind her, the demoness and her soldiers walked quickly in the other direction. The demoness was missing her fancy, armoured robe, and the soldiers lacked most of their armour and weapons. But the only expression on their faces was relief as they headed towards a fortress that loomed in the near distance.
Verina turned to look at the retreating demons, observed their nearly stripped figures, and smirked.
"Well done, sister," she said. The android nodded without speaking. Then Verina continued. "Let us go somewhere more interesting next. I've heard good things about Anthemoessa. I can't wait to discover what new things they'll have in store for us."
A neural command summoned a kaleidoscope of colours, and the gorgons stepped through the planar rift. It closed behind them, leaving the scorched hellscape and retreating demons behind.