It was a weird stand off between Theo and Arsenal.

By all means, Arsenal had the advantage in every possible way.

He had a more lethal version of Mechanicus' power armor, could fly, had super strength and had more weapons than Theo could hope to carry.

Yet despite this, Arsenal has not used Theo to mop the floor yet.

This confused Theo quite a bit.

"So.... Nice weather we're having today huh?" said Theo with a heavily scrambled voice.

"Cut the crap Lorne. You know why I'm here." replied Arsenal who made no effort hiding his rage.

"Pretty much. I'm right here you know? Come at me."

"Cocky little shit."

"Watch your language man. I'm currently streaming this you know? There could be children watching this."

"At 2 in the morning? Bullshit."

"Hmm... Touche."

Theo finally understood why Arsenal was being so passive.

Based on the video feeds from his spydrones, there were at least 10 superheroes just outside the building.

He expected drawing a lot of flack when he began his rampage, but this level of caution was something out of his predictions.

For now, Theo decided to probe Arsenal for info.

"In most encounters I have with superheroes, they always seem to try to get me to see the error of my ways. Are you going to go all philosophical at me too?"

"No. I have a gut feeling that nothing I'll say will change your mind."

"Correct. Anyways, we have some time to kill until the other 10 superheroes complete the encirclement. Let's talk about something interesting shall we?"

Arsenal flinched at Theo's words.

Theo has been playing him and his team since this entire shenanigan began. It was no wonder that the younger fallen hero was being treated like a S Rank supervillain.

"Well, since you're going to pretend to fall for my delaying tactic, I'll ask you something that's been bugging me."

"Go ahead. I'll answer whatever I can."

"Why willingly go up attack every criminal and superhero on sight? You're a cunning bastard. No way you'd do something so reckless without any reason."

Theo was hoping someone would ask him this exact question.

Time to pull out the 'tragic story' scenario.

He mentally accessed his utility belt and have it inject him with a Nichola-made drug. This was extremely weakened version that gender bending potion he used a while back. It did nothing except change his appearance.

He was silent for about 10 seconds while he waited for the potion to take its effect.

Once he felt the changes were over, he took off his helmet.

His new appearance made Arsenal recoil.

"Let's have everyone see what has happened to me." said Theo in a voice that was barely a whisper.

He faced the helm cam towards him.

What the audience saw was a shell of a man.

Theo was shriveled up and many wounds have not healed properly.

He was nearly bald and what what little was there was all white.

Everyone who wasn't in on the joke collectively gasped in horror.

After about 5 seconds, Theo wore his helm once again.

Good timing too, since the potion wore off about 2 seconds later.

"W-what the hell?!" exclaimed Arsenal

"I'm dying Mr. Arsenal. My doctor said I have about a month left if I didn't put any strenuous activities."

"But you looked fine when Omegaman saw you!"

"One of my wives is a skilled alchemist. She made me one of those appearance changing potions when I met the Big O himself. I wanted to at least look cool one last time."

"I see.... How did you end up like this?" asked Arsenal who was completely duped by Theo's script.

"I have traveled all over the world and have fought many things. Some of them were beyond mortal comprehension and I had no choice but to run away. One such encounters cursed me. I'm not entirely sure how this curse works but I'm guessing its something similar to accelerated aging. I'm not even in my 20s yet but my doctor told me that my body is around 90 years old."

"Damn.... That's rough..."

"My end is near. I could just wait it out, but that's not my style. I wanted go out with a bang. You had no idea how happy I was when Omegaman came to me with a mission! If I was going to croak, might as well do one last deed! ..... Or so I thought.... Do you have any idea how pissed off I was when I discovered that the entire mission was to frame me for a crime?!"

"T-thats-!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! This was suppose to be my LAST GOOD DEED! I would have died happy if you let me have that one last satisfaction! But nooooooooooooooooo~! Fucking politics gets in the way once again!"

"That's not it Lorne! If we had known-!"

Theo used his super shotgun and shot one of the gatling guns on Arsenal's back.

"I should have known the superheroes would betray me like they did in the Valkyrie Incident. As such, I'm taking matters into my own hands. I am going to die today! That is without a shadow of a doubt! But I'm taking as many filth in this city with me! And if you're going to stop me, then you'll die as well!"

For best acting, the award goes to Theodore Lorne!

Round of applause please!

Without further ado, the battle began.

Thanks to the whole sob story, Arsenal was extremely reluctant to open fire.

Theo capitalized this and made a hasty retreat why peppering Arsenal with his ARX160.

While the 5.56x45mm NATO rounds simply bounced off of the iron man's plasteel x carbon fiber hybrid armor, it drove the fact home to the viewers that Theo was fighting a hopeless battle against impossible odds.

Everyone loves the underdog.

He ran through the building while Arsenal let out a half assed barrage which mostly missed Theo by a mile.

Theo jumped out of a window and was immediately greeted by a muscular woman's fist.

He dodged to the side as the fist blew a large hole on the wall behind him.

Before he could counter attack, a beam of pure energy sent him flying 20 meters into a meatshop across the street.

Theo endure the broken bones and the subsequent pain the omnigel inflicted on him and began running to the back of the shop.

The superheroes immediately realized what Theo's plan was and gave chase.

The meatshop was in the general direction of Vermilion City's richest district. It was also home to many mansions belonging to the untouchable scum that has enough money to bend and break the law.

And since Theo has announced that he was about to go apeshit until his 'death', it also meant that he no longer cared how many laws he had to break to achieve his goals.

Theo used his grappling gun to go up to the top floor of the 5 story building.

From there, he began parkouring from building to building towards his first destination.

Naturally, no way this was going to be easy.

From the heavens came a literal rain of fire.

Flying overhead was a mage on a pegasus mount and she was casting the Fireball spell with reckless glee.

Theo ran in a zigzag manner to dodge the explosive spells raining from above.

It seemed that this lunatic did not care of the collateral damage she would inflict.

While he desperately trying to think of how to deal with the mage, the floor underneath him shattered and a humanoid alligator bit him in the leg before dragging him into the building.

Alligator man's surprise attack may have been perfect in execution, but he was just unfortunate enough to target the guy with machines for legs.

Theo capitalized on the poor man's error by shoving the ARX160 into the enemy's eye socket and unloaded a copious amounts of bullets into his brain.

Before he could recover, he pried alligator man's jaw open and jumped out the nearest window.

Not a second later, the pyromaniac mage unleashed a torrent of fire into the building.

He used the grappling guns on his mechanical backpack to swing to a street famous for the shops that cater to the many people that worked in graveyard shifts. From food, drinks and a few secret whore houses here and there, this street was one of the busiest area in Vermilion City.

Theo planned to go through this area in advance in order to take all of the inhabitants as hostage. This would substantially ease the pressure of the superheroes' pursuit.

However, he was actually hesitant to execute this particular route now that he was in the think of things.

The pyromaniac mage might just ignore the collateral damage and burn everything to the ground.

He landed on a parked car and drew the confused gaze of everyone around him.

Dreading what massacre he might unleash to these poor souls, Theo used his spydrones to access his pursuers coms to see what's up.

He flinched upon hearing the screams of anger via his opponents coms.

The higher ups were arguing with the pyromaniac about ethics and the potential ramifications of her killing bystanders.

It seemed that the pyromaniac mage was a 'Reformed Criminal' AKA a scum that did her time and got out of jail the legal way.

She did her time and went through the system as she should.

Her power probably got her scouted by the Superheroes and was now part of a special response group.

Good for her..... however, she seemed to be the type of person that enjoyed the fine arts of brutality and carnage.

Theo knew this because it took one to know one.

Among all of his pursuers, she was the most dangerous one.

Theo got off the car and walked towards the center of the pedestrian infested street in order to get a good view of the pyromaniac.

He activated one of his archon batteries and loaded a round into his arm cannon.

The pyromaniac was about 3 kilometers away and was 500 meters off the ground. It seemed that she was arguing with Arsenal via coms.

A distracted opponent + an archon charged hand cannon with an effective range and firepower similar to a 120mm tank gun = 'This is way too easy' type of shot.

He could do it with his eyes closed.

Theo didnt even bother taking aim and simply fired from the hip.

Not a millisecond later, a massive BOOM echoed through the night sky.

And just like that, the pyromaniac ceased to exist.

As expected of the people of Vermilion City, the large explosion was met with cheers and applause.

There was nothing more uplifting to the graveyard shift workers than a little adrenaline in their veins.

After giving his audience the explosive entrance that they deserved, Theo jumped on top of a parked car end began hopping from one vehicle to the next.

Instead of heading straight for the heart of the city's richest district, he changed coarse and headed for a 30 story building that was still in the middle of construction 10 minutes from his location.

It was still a little early, but Theo decided to move to the 4th phase of his plan.

1st phase: Battle in the scrapyard.

2nd phase: A small chase into the city.

3rd phase: Get cornered by Arsenal and do the whole 'I'm Dying' routine.

4th phase: LET THE MEMES BEGIN!

Initially, he wanted to do this in the middle of the city's busiest crossroads, but the superheroes' pressure was above expectations.

As such, he decided to bring out the big guns before he losses the chance to do so.

Running on top of the cars in such a crowded street proved to be the right thing to do.

The superheroes were hot on his tail, but they hesitated to pull any stunts lest the many bystanders would get caught in all the madness.

Worst still, the crowd has realized that a potential battle was brewing between Theo and the superheroes.

His non stop streaming did quite a bit to help the awareness.

Because of this, quite a large number of people were following Theo in hopes of a good show.

And as the entertainer that he was, Theo had every intention to meet their expectations.

Eventually he reached his destination and ran into the unfinished building.

He chose this place because there was no one working on it at this time.

It was the perfect place to go wild.

Naturally, the superheroes thought the same thing.

Theo used one of the grappling guns to move up the next floor in order to dodge a massive beam of red energy that obliterated everything in its path.

He ran from large pillar to large pillar as a torrent of lightning, ice javelins and bullets flew his way.

It seemed that the effect of the 'Im Dying' shtick has finally wore off as Arsenal unleashed holy hell upon Theo.

He didnt even bother trying to fight back and concentrated on getting to the elevators.

Even if he did try to take some pot shots, the split second he wasted on that would end up killing him.

Fortunately, his upgraded legs allowed him to run significantly faster than an olympic runner.

However, 3 superheroes, a humanoid cheetah shapeshifter, Jade Imp martial artists and a swordsman quickly caught up with him.

On the plus side, the range combatants stopped to avoid friendly fire.

On the minus side, Theo was forced to fight in a range where he was in a severe disadvantage...... or so they thought.

The first one to arrive was cheetah man who tackled Theo in the ribs.

Big mistake.

Theo used his omni directional flamethrower and engulfed everything within 5 meters of him in napalm.

This stopped the martial artist and the swordsman on their tracks.

Such was the inherit fear of fire present in all living things.

Cheetah man bravely held Theo down despite the fire mercilessly burned his eyes, lungs and skin.

In recognition of the man's courage and commitment, the mechanical arm that held Theo's supershot gun aimed at Cheetah man's head and blew it to smithereens.

Nothing was more merciful than ending a man's needless suffering.

Theo got up and continued running while using the ARX160 to no-look-shooting behind him.

The mechanical arm automatically began reloading the supershot gun as he finally reached the still elevator.

Fortunately, it did not have a door thus allowing him simply jump in.

The still under construction elevator was on the first floor, which was perfect for what he had in mind.

He grabbed the elevator cable with his left hand and used the supershot gun wielding mechanical arm to blow the connection between the two.

And by abusing the ever popular pulley design present in all elevators, the difference in weight caused Theo to be pulled up at breakneck speeds while the counter weight fell to the ground.

Theo got off at the 25ft floor before he went splat on the shaft's ceiling.

He surveyed the area and was pleased to see that there was barely anything in the floor. This will allow him a fair bit of room to make his grand reveal.

He went to the center of the floor where there was a large circular empty space that extended all the way to the first floor.

He couldnt ask for a more perfect stage.

With everything in place, Theo sat on the edge and waited.

About 10 seconds later, Arsenal and the swordsmans he was carrying with him finally caught up.

"Ho? Finally giving up are we Lorne?" asked Arsenal as the 2 superheroes cautiously approached Theo.

"Nope. I'm just waiting." replied Theo without bothering to face the 2.

"Waiting for what exactly?"

"This."

On que, the deafening sound of a jet engine echoed through out the building as Theo's heavily modified F35 Lightning 2 barely squeezed through between the 25th and 26th floor at 60 knots.

Before the 2 superheroes could react, the F35 unleashed its 4 barrel GAU-22/A gatling cannon on them.

Arsenal survived the hail of 25mm rounds thanks to his power armor.

The same could not be said to the swordsman that was instantly ripped to shreds.

Thanks to the F35's 2 archon batteries that were larger than that of the Terminator Armor and the multitude of powerful thrusters all over its fuselage, the fighter plane was able to perform feats beyond what was possible.

As it flew over Theo's head and reach the large empty space, it instantly pointed its nose 70 degrees straight up.

This allowed its extremely powerful VTOL thruster to be pointed directly in front of it which allowed it to reduce its speed from 60 knots to a complete stop in an instant.

And with the combination of its many thrusters that were powered by the twin archon batteries, it was able to maintain this awkward pose while hovering in mid air.

Since Arsenal was once a pilot, the very sight of an actual fighter plane performing such impossible moves was beyond his mind could comprehend.

Capitalizing on the superhero's confusion, Theo jumped and boarded the F35, selected his Eurobeat playlist and kicked off the most absurd dogfight in aviation history