//------------------------------//
// The Element of (S)laughter 
// Story: A Battleground of Kindness 
// by StormDancer 
//------------------------------//

Now, in situations like this, where a possible threat has just circumvented the best conceived response to lair invasion available, there are only a few potential outcomes.

1) The threat is neutralized and just doesn't know it yet. This usually happens when the Master is unexpectedly home and has laid a series of terrible wasting curses upon the invader and is simply sitting back to watch the hapless fool die. Glancing around, I failed to see the Master, so I mentally checked that option off.

2) The threat is unexpectedly powerful and is taking the time to gloat... leaving an opportunity to strike! Seeing as how the Pink one had a stick with a marshmallow on it, toasting said confection in the blaze of fel fire behind me, I slashed at its throat. When the stick snapped upright, deflecting my blow as the invader nibbled, unphased, upon its treat, I hissed and continued my contemplation.

3) The threat is accident prone and has been simply stumbling from one point of good luck to the next. Watching it chew happily upon the marshmallow, I mentally burned that option. Smiles... indicators of wickedness and impending doom and all.

4) RETREAT! Well... normally such situations where the invader has overcome the lairs defenses would allow one to flee and take up a better position with stronger defenses. Notedly, however, the Master had forbidden me from placing traps.... or modifying non-traps into defensive measures. DAMN.

5) Ah... the fifth outcome. Defeat.

I frowned. The Master was not home. The lair had been breached. The idiot, Spike, had let it in. It had overcome my defenses by avoiding them completely, and was currently mocking me while eating a squishy ball of unlit confectionery napalm.

Eating treats while in front of an enemy is considered gloating, right?

I took another experimental slash at the Pink thing, only to find a cardboard cutout painted to look like it where it had been a moment before. Definitely gloating, then.

With a howl, I sprinted from the doorway to find the Pink thing's current whereabouts. It could NOT be allowed to roam, unchecked, through the Master's lair! What would the boys back home think? What would the Legion think?

I swallowed.

What would the Master think?

And about that time, I heard a sound that made my immortal ears try to implode in a vain attempt at protecting my hearing. I stumbled to a stop, clutching my head as the noise grew in pitch until I was certain blood would be spraying from my ears at any moment, only to wheeze as I felt my body being crushed into a horrifyingly squishy doom.

"I didn't know Twilight got a new pet!" the Pink thing bellowed.

Then there were explosions as pastel paper rained down around us.

Oh.... right.... it was, supposedly, the Master's minion.

How was I supposed to have known?

-~oOo~-


Let me be absolutely clear on this: imps are almost completely fireproof.

Yes, we can get burns. Sure, we can get hurt by a fireball. And, of course, there's the ever present threat of immolation from upsetting our masters, but when it comes to natural fire.... meh, it's pretty much just a nice, warm, relaxing, dust bath.

That being said, with the amount of flammable objects that the Pink mage summoned out of thin air, I was pretty sure I could have suffocated if a fire had started.

And, yes, I said it was a mage. An engineer mage at that. She summoned a "party CANNON" out of nowhere and teleported on a whim.

Don't give me that confused look. Actions speak for themselves and she did it. Also, I know it's pretty much the most backwards combination possible, magic and science, but there it was.

Magic and technology.... something's inherently wrong with that combination.

Usually when you mix those two, something explodes. What's that? You need a source of heat for this engine but don't have the room for a boiler? Well sure! Why not use a crucible of eternal fire in place of a water cooling system?

Boom.

And let's not forget about the other end of it. Need to dump some extra magic from a spell matrix that might overflow? Why not use a latent arcane flow to bleed some power off?

Sizzle and then boom.

Oh, and that's ignoring when you try to mix them together. Flammable gassified fuel and a shield spell combined with a perpetual spark worked into a kinetic sculpture with greased pivots and a luminescence effect?

Sizzle, Pop, and then Boom.
Very big, moving, river of Boom, to be precise.

Rather explains why the Legion loves infusing fel magic into siege weapons, actually. Love those engineers on the front lines. If the cannons don't work, then we send the engineers to 'work' on the walls. Booms either way! Everydemon wins!

But then, there's the Pink mage.... and the Master.

Who, I might mention, arrived right about the time I had been chasing the Pink one around while she was giggling about how I was playing freeze tag wrong.

I ended up in a bubble of the Master's magic.... again.

And you know what? Despite having to teach the Master how to put out the column of fel fire in the doorway, despite being told to write out lines on the chalkboard, despite helping Spike to clean up the lair..... AGAIN.... I actually kind of, almost, nearly, and just barely, think I like the Pink mage.

I mean, after all, who else around here hasn't been angry at me for trying to kill them with fire, conjures artillery, and blows things up on a whim?

...

And she gave me a cupcake, which has absolutely nothing to do with it.

-~oOo~-