Fight and Flight (UrbFan)

    You're on your own again. Wandering the streets at night, the roads dark from the rain that is pelting down, but you hardly notice it. The moisture sizzling away as soon as it hits you. You don't sleep near as much as your host does. Only a hour or two a night, so you spend most of your time like you are now. It’s getting late though, the streets are quiet with neither traffic nor pedestrians as far as the eye can see, and you start heading back to Cassie's apartment.

    That’s when you notice it, a fleeting shadow out of the corner of you eye, only there when you're not looking at it. You're not worried until the streetlamps go out. All of them, and you're plunged into darkness.

    The Umbra have found you.

    You instantly are a beacon of flame, beating back the shadows, but even that is being fought. Horrible outlines of what look like caricatures of mouths and eyes stare back at you. A rasping, inhuman voice calls out to you "You cannot escape us, Aeshma." Any last remaining doubt is banished, they know your name.

    "Who’s escapin?" You throw a fireball into the darkened mass surrounding you, and there’s a screech, but the fire is quickly swallowed. They picked a good time, the rain means you're not as likely to catch anything on fire, and because it’s so late at night it’s not likely that anybody’s going to walk across this confrontation.

    "Not you." The voice is right behind you. Where you had a solid body before turns fully to flame as a lance of shadow goes through where your shoulder would have been. You reform right beside it, grab hold and try to drag one of them out of the mass. Grabbing its mockery of a face and trying to burn it, but it just bleeds away back into the dark. "Just watch me." You spit it back in retort, giving a grin you don't feel.

    "Still not going quietly, how delightful. One always does relish a challenge."  You shift and spin and keep throwing fire out, the pavement below dry from the fire show you've put on. But you can only keep them at bay, you can't /kill/ them. The fight drags on and you try to push your way through to someplace with light. The darkness is only helping them. "Look how he struggles against the inevitable. So much trouble for such a small thing."

    “Small thing? I think I oughta be insulted.” You’re forced into an ally, searching desperately for something to burn, they’ll keep you contained without something else, and then it is only a matter of time. You turn and try to blast through them to run deeper in, looking for anything you can use. They ghost beside you, staying back from the flames, but keeping up.

    You turn the corner and spot your salvation, a large fuel tank beside one of the buildings. The Umbra spot it as well, and try to get in between you and it, tearing at you as you rush for it. Despite their numbers you punch through, break the connecting pipe, flames racing down into the fuel. With a flash and explosion the tank ruptures, blowing a hole in the building beside and lighting up the alleyway. By the time the flames subsume and the Umbra recover you’re already gone, heading back to Cassie’s apartment.

    You race through the night, keeping an eye out for any trails. Hiding is out of the question, but maybe it’s time to see what Sally can find for you. The only alternative is running again, and that doesn’t sound overly appealing to you. You sigh, not liking your choices, but you don't see an alternative. You’ve got some explaining to do.