Seth felt calm, calmer than he’d ever felt before. But it was an odd calm, like he was detached, distant from himself. This strange feeling was only exacerbated by the fact that he wasn’t sitting any more. He couldn’t even feel the wall he was originally against, the sand beneath him. Then he realized something else, his body. It was light, lighter than it should be anyway. He opened his eyes, but it was like he never did. He was surrounded by darkness. Not oppressive consuming darkness, just… emptiness. He looked down to check himself and only increased his confusion. His hands were almost see through, an intricate pattern of points of light in the shape of his hands. They still felt like his, moved like his, but his body was… energy. Suddenly the darkness wasn’t so dark, distant flashes illuminated shadows. Like storms on the night horizon. They crossed expanses in set lines, then flashed and spread from splaying terminuses. He… ‘Why am I in my own head?’ Synaptic lines lit up as distant nerve clusters transmitted code across innumerable points that flashed and dimmed in the distance. But where he was, where he stood, it remained dark. He felt around, but it was like he was staring at nothing. But then he felt a pull, and it became clear.

He stopped feeling out and looked deep. A point of energy. A multitude of points. ‘Okay too much… Too much! Gah!’ He was blinded as his own focus… his perception shifted to where all the light, all the energy was condensed and congregated. He rubbed his facsimiles for eyes. He wasn’t blind, he was just slow to focus on this different scale. Slowly the formless light gained resolution. Buildings he’d never see before. Like stocky huts made of stone and metal… or at least energy mimicking those materials. They rose high like apartments, very much not like huts. He felt a road beneath his feet. It was soft and smooth, but also stone. He felt a breeze… ‘How is there wind here?’ It was cool, cold even. He shivered a little, even if it was just simulated… ‘This is a simulation right?’

Then he saw them. The densest groups of lights formed into bodies, people. But… not humans. The lights resolved to a point, into scales that desperately mimicked hues and patterns. Claws and talons. Snouts and toothy grins. Reptilian beings, like the laceroids but… not. Their bodies were smaller, not overblown and muscled. They varied in height and stature, posture and poise. But their eyes. Their eyes didn’t show the desperation, fear, or hunger that Seth knew. In fact they looked like they recognized him, like they’ve been waiting for him. He… ‘This is what you guys look like? Not going to lie, I thought you’d all be taller.’ A collective mix of slightedness and deflated auspiciousness spread through those gathered to greet him. One rather tall, gold, and regally poised Garkah had his face in his hand. But under that hand he began to laugh. As he wiped away the hand the rest of the crowd began to chuckle. Seth felt another at his back, but knew who it was almost instantly. He wrapped a transparent scaly arm around his head like a proud older brother. “And here they thought that I was going to spoil the moment.” Threat, somewhat smaller than the others, was beaming a green hued smile and chuckling with the rest of the crowd as they all gathered around him.

Threat let go as the crowd neared, not wanting to hog him all to himself. Speaker cleared his chuckle, but couldn’t stop himself from grinning. He put a clawed hand over Seth’s shoulder, Seth could feel the pride he was feeling. “It is great to finally meet you face to face. It has been too long coming has it not?” Seth smiled as he felt everyone’s welcome through Speaker, he was probably overdoing his role a little, but it wasn’t something he would complain about. ‘Well if you bothered to tell me I could do this, I would have visited sooner.’ Speaker put his other hand on Seth’s other shoulder and leaned down to him. Expression changed from etiquette suppressed joy to hammed up suppressed malice. “Well we did not exactly have a body for you to use here till now. Would you rather float about as an amorphous consciousness getting stuck in everything you touch or a rushed and hollow facsimile that would have driven you insane?” Seth smiled a slightly fearful smile. ‘N-no no, this is fine.’ Speaker straightened back up, regaining the poise he had before, but retaining his prideful joy. “Still. I am glad you can finally see us. Finally meet us as we are. Finally see what we have built.” Speaker waved his hand out at the city around them. Buildings of pure energy spread out from a central point, rose up over each other like they all vied for attention.

Seth could feel the rest of the Garkah spread out over the city. And in turn they felt him. He felt their aspirations, their fears, their loves. He felt their works, great leaps in their fields thanks to their incorporeal stature. Architects built their designs from sheer thought and tested them without consequence. Doctors tested formulations and procedures with life-like simulations. Scientists studied aspects of physics Seth couldn’t even fathom, he was sure one of them was even working on a matter teleportation method using similar processes as the Ark. He felt them all look to him, a people that prospered despite their situation, despite the events that lead them here. But he felt something else, felt their focus turn to the center of this city.

He felt Speaker’s hand release his shoulder as the rest of the crowd followed suit and focused toward the center. “This city… Our Tesh III. We built it with our own minds, with our own thoughts. But it had a starting point.” Seth followed everyone’s focus toward that center. “We were not simply transplanted into your brain. It could never have held us in the beginning. We were…” Threat stepped back up to Seth’s side, a clawed translucent finger pointed at his head. “The Ark shot a piece of itself into your head.” Speaker growled slightly at Threat’s bluntness, but he was used to it by now. Seth could feel it though. A sliver, not even as big as the cell it was laid upon, but he could still feel its pull… and its depth. ‘The abyss.’

Seth froze and Speaker hanged his head. “That is where we locked it away, buried it deep inside so we could hopefully control it. Teach you to control it. Before in… before... it was just free to spread and take hold. It fed on your emotions, gave you nothing but anger in return. We could not let that happen to you. Could not let it control who you were. But now. Now it is up to you to take up this mantle.” The crowd began moving forward, toward the center, toward the sliver. Seth was frozen. He couldn’t move. ‘I have to…’ He doubted himself. ‘I have to do this!’ He… “This is what I have to do!!”

He broke the doubts holding him back and pushed forward, Threat and Speaker flanking him as he advanced on the center, on the abyss. The crowd mirrored his resolve, amplified it as if it were their own. Seth felt the city move as one. All converging on that dreaded center. The buildings rose up above him as he reached it, a grand square… circle. The high-rise yurts peaked at the edge, forming walls of stone and metal around a wide open space. The road though disappeared as it approached the sliver, seemingly falling into it. It was a jagged matte black piece of dense metal, but it was surrounded by a barrier. A bubble of energy that locked it tight. But he could feel the cracks, hear the hiss of escaping energy like the bleed off a black hole. It consumed everything it touched, ate it and absorbed, and gave it all back as anger and power. Seth stopped at the road’s end, the whisper clear but disjointed through the hiss. Seth’s resolve wavered, but… “I will not let you have control of me!”

His resolve seemed to wash over the sliver, eliciting a flare from the abyss inside. He felt the whisper draw closer, like tendrils seeking to drag him away. But suddenly a force acted upon them, he felt Threat extend his reach out over the sliver. He was squashing the flare up, stifling it. He strained against it, but he knew how to deal with its ilk. And he wasn’t alone. Seth felt Speaker join in and extend his reach to stifle the flare. He mimicked Threat’s actions, his motives, collective consciousness paying off. Then the rest of the Garkah followed suit, all pressing down on the abyss, but not sinking it deeper into itself. The hiss became like a screech, the barrier waned as its energies became a part of the grip that held the abyss aloft, that pulled it up but held it tight. Seth knew this wouldn’t be enough, but knew what he had to do. He stepped forward, across the blanked space that the abyss created, passed the barrier that dissipated into the collective hold. The abyss strained against the grip, but equal force met it with every flare and canceled out its attempts to get free. Reaching the sliver, its surface was smooth but its edges were jagged like an arrow. Reaching a hand out, the abyss flared again. The Garkah recoiled as it tried to pry their grip open. He could feel it now. It knew nothing, understood nothing, but knew it wanted out, wanted to feel, wanted to know other emotions then anger and hate. It could do nothing but take and give back what it had too much of. Seth pitied it, born by accident from nothing but solidified rage, discarded and left to rot. “Fine then… you want to feel! Here, LET ME SHOW YOU!!!”

Seth slammed his hands onto the sliver, adding his grip to that of the Garkah’s. All at once he felt the abyss, felt it strain against him, felt it not as a disembodied hiss, but a living thing. It seemed to writhe in agony like an amorphous thought, blind to everything, not knowing even itself. And he knew what had to be done. A figurative foot stomped back, and he drew it out of its stagnant prison, drew toward him. He had to absorb it, meld and end this proto consciousness with his own. Prevent what could only be a tragedy should it ever gain coherent thought and directed action. He pulled. It flailed. He pulled harder at it and a red light burned through the transparencies of his hands. Like a drop of pure singularity pulled from a dead star, it rippled the sliver. It was freed of the black prison it had been shoved into for years, but it wasn’t free of Seth. He gripped it tight, held it close, and pulled it against his chest. It beat against his hands, against his hold. Its power was torrential, it shook the city, shook everything with each blind tantrum. Seth held it there despite its wailing, like an infant without a mother. “It’s okay… You don’t have to hate anymore!” He pulled it in. The shaking died down as it sank into him, becoming part of him. Seth could feel its anger, its hate, could see what it felt with his own eyes. He gave it his memories, his thoughts, his feelings, his very being. Everything it wanted so as to give it closure. In return it gave him its pain, its agony, its fear, its want. The two felt each other… then the one felt all. And at once, Seth let all that hate go.

His simulated body flared, blinding out everything around him. The city, the Garkah, the cell this whole civilization lived on. His focus melted away, the light dying down and leaving him back in darkness. His body felt heavier, more real. He felt the helmet on his head, the wall of the arena at his back again. He was awake, back in the arena, but… different than before. He could remember memories that weren’t his, see a world he’d never known. He pulled the helmet up, it wasn’t as heavy as before. In fact it felt like it weighed next to nothing to him. The arena’s light strained his eyes like they had never been opened before, but quickly adjusted without so much as a squint. He saw the same trainers, saw Razor and Kabar. They were still sparring. Like almost no time had passed. The phantom scar on his eye ceased to itch, its source cut off. He couldn’t hear the whisper any more, couldn’t feel the gravity trying to pull him away from himself. The abyss really was gone, was really a part of him now. But he could still hear something despite the continued clang and effort of mock fighting. A low chatter, voices. He put his helmet down at his side, a narrowly inaudible ping escaping as it was softly put down. The voices were understandable, but muffled. An ache flared in his head, a dull pain throbbed deep in his brain like freshly worked muscle. The chatter exacerbating the pain.

‘Uggh… can you keep it down? My head is ki-’ Those voices. He’d heard them many times before. The control room the Garkah set up to support him. The scientists and analysts that operated it. ‘Speaker?’ The voices hushed. Puzzled feelings from the Garkah. ‘Speak!’ Concentrated disappointment. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” ‘I CAN HEAR YOU!!!’ Through the whistling and clanging, thudding and whooshing, through the hustle and bustle, Seth could hear him loud and clear. “Wait… you can-” ‘I don’t need the quiet anymore!’ Seth felt it. His focus shifted across the whole of the Garkah’s city, he could hear and feel them individually, he could almost see them in his mind. He shifted back to Speaker, Threat in behind him feeling even prouder than before. “You took to that power pretty damn quick, it’s already sharpened your senses a few extra notches.”

Seth looked back at himself, he flexed his hands and felt power course through every inch. Speaker shifted to one of the readouts in the control room. “Not to mention it supercharged every system in your body. These kinds of readings though, the suit might not be adequate anymore?” Seth stood up, it was like he hadn’t just strained himself controlling the suit and the whisper. He felt stronger than ever. But… something nagged at the back of his mind. He felt Threat harden. The memories Seth was having, they were his. It was like he was there, not just told of what occurred, but actually feeling every bit of emotion Threat did during… his rampage. The abyss had been carrying these memories, and now Seth was to. The rage, the hate, all of that built up power from… killing the Garkah he fought. It was hellish just stomaching what had happened. But Seth knew better, knew this was a past long gone, and longing to be atoned for. He breathed in, he could almost feel every molecule that entered his lungs, feel the piwer flare throughout his entire body. He let go, all that hate and rage was pointless now, not his and not to be relived. Even his mind was sharper now, he could barely fathom being that profound before.

He left his mind blank for a second, let his focus drift away from himself. He looked down at his helmet and picked it up, it was like it was made of plywood. He heard the sounds of sparring trail off as he turned to his headless suit left slumped by the wall. The trainers were calling it for lunch, Razor was heaving from desperately blocking all of Blade Tone’s strikes. Kabar seemed to simmer at the display Seth had done, but his trainers mocked it as just a desperate show of what power they thought he had. Seth ignored it and reattached the helmet to the suit, socketing and twisting it back on its swivel. But he felt Hothead’s leer as they all exited the arena, felt him call out to him. “Don’t worry!! I’ll make sure to keep the food's warm for you this time!!” Seth had enough rage all his own to deal with, he didn’t need to take on anyone elses. Energy welled up with his ire, pooling in every juncture as he tensed in anger, an errant discharge carrying over the suit and flaring the eyes. He could feel all his new power, but knew he didn’t need it right now. He let it recede, but felt a separate pull upon it. One he almost instinctively expected.

Seth felt it like a dark spot in the night sky. A new abyss pulling at all that power, a fossilized black hole demanding sustenance. The Ark. But this time there was no existential crisis brought on by a malformed consciousness, it was just a solid hunk of overly conductive extraterrestrial metal. And Seth felt ready to break it open. He left the suit behind and wandered over to the storage door that housed the titanic glorified snow globe, feeling around for any hint of someone watching. The control booth was empty, he could feel the periphery teem with heroes and trainees going to lunch. Nervous systems lighting them up for him to track through the walls. Seth refocused, the control booth, the Hill’s security and recording systems. A few looped empty feeds for the arena, and no sight of Para to hear him go to work. ‘Good. This was almost getting too easy. This power is amazing.’

The storage door was locked with a keypad, bad move. Seth put a hand to it, felt the wiring, the circuitry. The physical lock was tied to a specific signal expected from the system in the keypad, so he bypassed the pad all together. An arc of electricity jumped circuits and hardware gates, mimicking the unlock signal without needing a proper code. The door shuttered upward slowly, too slowly. He gripped the door as a whole, the chains, the motors. The door was pushed up, the chain pulled harder, and the motor sped up a few notches, nothing destructive at any rate. Just stepping it up a bit. Though he back off a little, aware of his own overbearance ‘Okay, maybe I’m over doing it a little?’ “You think!?” Threat was astounded, but Seth accepted his worry and assented.

The dark unlit storage space yawned at him. The matte black abomination blended almost perfectly into the darkness, but he could feel every inch of it. He put a hand to it, hesitating slightly as he remembered, as he saw Threat’s memories flash in his head. Speaker soothed that hesitation. “Its systems are long dead, drained dry and smelted by the overload, it will not accept passengers ever again. But it will accept energy, and it is greedy.” Seth pressed his hand down. Its surface was cold, dormant, but smooth despite the circuitry that ran along its surface. He felt deeper, felt the gravity well that pulled him in abate as he passed into the core. Ohm’s contribution of freed electrons was still pooled over it, spread thin like a spilled drink on a floor. But there was more. Older energy from other electric heroes. It stagnated below Ohm’s, but it was markedly less. The Ark wasn’t quite so dead.

There was a draw at the base of this stagnant pool. He followed it down, deeper and deeper. Thinner and thinner. The energy almost reaching its physical limit, single electrons locked in an ever flowing stream. Waving up and down, back and forth. The odd few dissipating beyond what he could hope to see. But all of it humming a set tune. ‘That’s it.’ The signal that held the Ark together. The key thread that wove this tapestry. This line of electrons was driven down and disseminated throughout the whole of the Ark. It flowed through every crystalline structure, binding it all together and crushing it all down to nearly singularity.

But snipping this thread would be meaningless. One lost electron would be insignificant to its vast whole, replaced by one taken from the pool or stretched over by its innumerable brethren. And outlasting it would be a fool’s errand, every molecule of this behemoth was bound tight, so draining it would take years. No, every infinitesimal electron on that chain had to be taken hold of, wrenched from its place and freed from their abyssal servitude all at once. Made to sing a different tune. And this chain crisscrossed every inch, nearly every molecule of this thing’s structure. This was going to take focus and power beyond anything fathomable. But Seth felt like trying.

He gripped, the metal had no give but it latched to his hand like a magnet pole. ‘May as well try out all this strength while I’m trying.’ He gripped with his other hand, a similar magnetic grip clinging to the lower surface of the sphere. He pulled, the magnetic attraction straining but not giving in as the sphere was dragged slowly out into the light. He dug his heels in with every backward step, crunching sand to dust as he tested his colossal new limits. Finally needing all that power, he felt it flex and flare with his body, in his muscles. And over them.

It was like the Ark’s thread was weaved through him as well, keeping everything together despite the forces pressed against it. But it was also weaved into muscles all their own, adding to and augmenting every movement he made. This… ‘This is the power the Laceroids were made off.’ Seth stopped dead, the Ark was fully revealed for every melded circuit and tarnished scar across its surface. ‘But now… now it won’t run rampant.’ He closed in, bringing his grip lower on the sphere. ‘Now it will be used to help people. To save them.’ He shifted lower, pushing and pulling the Ark up. ‘It will never again threaten this world, so long as I control it!’ The Ark quaked, rose, titanic forces of weight and might clashed as the Ark lifted from the ground. The floor buried below creaked in protest as the darkening behemoth was denied gravity's hold for a straining moment. Finally coming to rest on Seth’s shoulder, resounding low thud sent through the arena. ‘And I intend to keep that promise. I have a debt to pay after all?’

Seth smirked as he started up, walking the Ark across the arena’s track, deep low thuds reverberating with every step. The going was easy, the Ark was just a cumbersome hold. A lot of surface to contend with and only two hands. ‘Let’s see if we can kick things up a little.’ He stepped up his pace, keeping an even and level gait, but speeding up gradually. Before long he was briskly traversing the track like an evening stroll and not like he was hauling an immeasurably dense and undoubtedly hundreds of tons heavy metal ball with his bare hands. As he rounded the track on his third lap he felt eyes on him, a presence in the control booth. But it wasn’t alarming. Seth felt their surprise at the mass of metal passing their window, but knew they were trustworthy. It was Mediknight, walking in with his lunch coffee to prep the afternoon simulations, but getting more than he bargained for. ‘May as well give him a show.’

Seth put a foot down at the edge of the track and nearly cracked the floor hidden beneath the sand. He cratered and cut the corners out completely, rocketing over the middle of the arena with a massive kick off. Rippling the air as far too much mass was carried across it. Landing on the other side, he dug ruts in the arena floor. Sliding to a stop, priming, and turning about to do it again. The air boomed as he rocketed off across the track, shooting dust back that’d piled up at his feet. Another concussive landing on the other side. As he turned back again to launch he felt more eyes. Aegis… ‘Where the hell has she been?’ She walked into the control room, just as awestruck as Medi as they watched the ultra-massive hunk of metal fly over the arena track again. ‘Whatever, it’s time to shatter this damn thing!’

Seth rumbled the arena and rounded his last leap on the south side, shooting off toward the north and rocking the windows of the booth. Half way over he shifted, rearing back and dragging the Ark higher on his grip. With an almighty toss, he brought the Ark down in the center of the arena, slamming it but not impacting it into the floor. His momentum didn’t stop though. Using the excessive counterweight of the Ark, he released his magnetized grip and flipped over, hurling himself to the opposite side of the arena. He landed hard and slid to a final halt, standing back up and focusing on the power he had and the power he could use around him. He could feel through the arena’s power systems, but his pull expanded out greater than ever before. He stifled it before it got out of control. ‘Can’t siphon off from the Hill, it’s too monitored, have to borrow from the city proper.’ All at once he spread out his focus, latching it to the power lines, the ancillary systems across the city, the things no one would miss if they were off for a few seconds. And then he pulled. The air in the arena seemed to glow in ionization, free electrons pulled through inert matter and into… his suit. Eyes lighting up with the plasma blue of true power usage, it straightened up from its slump and walked on its own.

It stomped up to the ruts Seth had dug with his heels and began mimicking his stance like before. But this time was different. Seth finished taking in some energy for himself, shifting to a stance to meet an oncoming attack. But the suit didn’t mimic, instead stancing up to be that attack. Suddenly it charged forward, stomping ahead toward the Ark. Before reaching it double foot leaped forward, pulling and priming its legs to double leg kick the Ark. It made contact like a firing pin of a howitzer, sparks flying as both bodies rocket away from impact. The suit flipped and landed back in the ruts. The massive ball shot at Seth like a served volleyball meant for kaiju, but he didn’t adjust. An arm locked in preparation shot forward as the Ark closed, meeting it with force, more force than was imparted upon it. The whole arena heaved from the hit, roof shutters rocking from the gale force aftershocks. Seth felt the reverberation that his punch caused in the Ark, the distortion in the chains. ‘Need to hit harder.’ The air nearly tore asunder as gravity was denied by velocity. The suit shifted and another all mighty punch struck home, equal in its titanic force. The Ark was rebounded back at Seth. The windows of the control booth shook from each impact and the sheer wind force the Ark caused in its wake. This was starting to get out of hand. ‘Then let’s FINISH IT!!’

As the Ark came again at him, Setg shifted, jumping airborne and kicking it back toward the suit, the hit reverberating the whole damn Hill. The suit though shot forward. Arms slamming low and together, intent to serve the Ark up. Landing and locking back down, Seth shot after the Ark with a monumental step. At the halfway point, the suit locked down and straddling the indent that the Ark had made. With one final flare it spiked the Ark up with one final monumental hit. Its wake kicked up a wave of sand that followed the Ark up through the open roof of the arena. The suit followed through its upward double handed slam by stretching out and lotusing itself opening for Seth to get in. He pivoted as he neared, matching the suit's stretch and slamming home into the suit, plates and panels closing with heavy clangs.

The suit seemed to ache and sizzle, copper lines and conductive plates strained by the excess energy. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to hold for much longer.’ Seth stretched low, over dense weight sinking him into the indent and putting him directly under the Ark. He skimmed a fist almost to the ground and priming to leap after the Ark. The sand repelled from around his fist, a distinctive pattern. He mimicked the waveform of the Ark’s chains in his hand, its binding signal being its only key. He knew it by heart now, its frequency, its strength. The Ark reached its zenith and began to fall back down, reaching terminal velocity quickly. ‘NOW!’ The sand around him seemed to repulse itself in fear before he released his jump, the massive force clearing all the sand from the arena’s floor and loosing another cacophonous boom in his wake. He aimed upward. The Ark was already back through the arena roof as the titanic forces collided, and Seth threw his punch.

Perception slowed the world as the Ark seemed stopped in midair on his fist. Equal forces meeting and canceling. Shockwaves propagating up from the leap that came before impact the only visible result. Contact seemed to come with almost disappointing softness, but then the cracks formed. A uniform wave of illuminated cracks almost blindingly flashed up the Ark’s surface. The illumination spread out without care for perception, free electrons released from their eternal bindings shot away and ionized the air in all directions. A neon aurora appeared and dissipated in nearly the same instant as the electrons blinked away, as the Ark shattered at long last. Jagged chunks loosed pitifully away like overweight shrapnel, falling down in uniform sequence.

The control booth watched, still in awe and horror. Normal perception returned as the heavy jagged pieces fell to the arena floor, stabbing into it as the aerosolized sand and dust fell back in kind. Seth landed in the indent, a battering rain of jagged yet symmetrical pieces falling over him. It abated and he rose back up in the center of a field of black knives, like a matte black volcanic landscape. It radiated out and thinned with distance, unlucky pieces piled up around him with no ground left to stab. He stood for a moment, still in awe himself. His first self-set hurdle, shattered to bits.

Then the reality set in, namely his suit melting down while he wore it. “Gah! Hot! Hot!!!” The copper oozing a little too close for comfort, the heat in the suit starting to boil the gel… and singe his skin. Struggling, he quickly folded out the release button and used up all the saved extinguisher foam. It screamed as it fizzled away on contact. “Shit! SHIT!!” Seth quickly pulled at the energy in the suit, forcing it into his hand. He slammed it down and released all of it into the arena floor, to ground. The release pushed the last of the sand around as he heard the main door to the arena open. The suit cooled its melted capacitors as Aegis and Mediknight slowly approached the field of Ark chunks. Aegis had her hair in her hand trying to wrap her head around what she just witnessed. “What… How… When… WHAT?!?” Seth stood up and popped his helmet open, a release of steam and hot air adding not so subtle nuance. “What? You wanted me to stop holding back.” He smirked jokingly, but felt the gravity of both his actions and actual gravitational weight down on him, he really over did it. He slumped as his suit weighed his exhausted body down. Aegis’s face was twitching with concern and anger. “But this… This…” Mediknight stepped forward, clear disquiet in his stare. “This is too much power kid!” Seth creaked back up, pulling a bit of power back just so he can walk out of here. “Well… this wasn’t just power.”

Aegis and Mediknight’s expressions stayed overwhelmed, but grew more puzzled. He knew he had to explain a few things. “The Ar- sphere, it was never going to break from power alone.” Seth realized he had to explain way more than that. He REALY over did it. “I… studied it a bunch after Ohm had his go at it. And… maybe broke in… a few times to do it. But I learned stuff about it, learned what held it together. I just had to disrupt a whole heap of energy so that… poof. It would fall to pieces.” ‘Please please pleeeeease believe me!’ Aegis looked down at the almost completely symmetrical yet jagged chunks that lined the ground, picking one up and feeling it. “But… this is… you’re not even…!” Seth looked down slightly, having to let a few cats out of the bag was the only way to get through this. “My… power is… a little complicated.” Mediknight glared up as he examined a piece as well. “You’re putting that too mildly!” “Okay, my power is fucking too much sometimes! I keep it quiet and somewhat hidden because I don’t fully trust it! Don’t… fully trust others to accept it.” Seth stared at the both of them, only somewhat hiding his anxiety at telling a little too much truth. But he trusts them. They knew a little of this already. Aegis sighed away her anger, but rubbed her head at the headache this whole thing has caused. “I’ll admit we already knew that you had a lot more than you were letting on. You suck at hiding it.” ‘Ouch.’ “But… this is something nobody, NOBODY, has been able to do. Let’s just rewind to the how… How the fuck did you find something that- *beep* hmm… Shit FUCK PARA’S ON HIS WAY!!” ‘CRAAAAAAP!’

Aegis turned to Mediknight, desperately intent on trying to explain away why the indestructible sphere was just destructed by a fucking trainee. Let alone the one trainee he hated the most. Seth meanwhile grabbed up a central chunk and stuffed it in his suit and stepped out, tossing the whole thing out over the knife field, leaping out after it himself. ‘Shit ugh… fuck this is going to need some power.’ Seth focused, fuck subtlety, he pulled power straight from the hardlight array into himself. The sand at his feet repelled as he accumulated. Then he refocused on the Ark’s shattered pieces, on the key thread’s signal. Slowly… no, gotta go fucking quickly. He haphazardly ran a new key threading electron chain through the Ark, tracing as much of its old path as he could. A helping hand from the Garkah guided his focus, this is not the time for learning the hard way. Once in place he pulled it together like loose stitching, reforming it back into a single solid sphere. The pieces seemed to fuse together, hissing with escaping heated air from the molecularly welding cracks. The matte black surface came back together in the indent as Seth let his hands drop and a sigh release. He finished and pulled away quickly. He turned to see Aegis and Mediknight’s shocked faces again, now double shocked. Seth approached and shushed their shock as he felt Para approach the entrance door, wordlessly eying it to draw their attention. Both shook their expressions away as the door opened violently.

“What in the FUCKING HELL has been going on in here!? I’ve been getting sonic alerts for the past 3 minutes and a UFO sighting to boot!! Someone want to EXPLAIN why the Laceroid sphere is out and an unpowered trainee is present in the same place to top it all off!!” ‘Is… is he really that deluded still?’ Before Seth could express his slightedness, Aegis, sweating profusely either from stress or by reflex, wiped her forehead and barged ahead. “Sorry about that. Figured I would try a new weight training regimen with the sphere, these guys just got here. Heh, they were worried what all the noise was as well.” Aegis almost too nonchalantly rubbed the back of her head, drawing too close to the line of humble brag and hiding something. Para looked like he was having none of it as he stared straight at Seth, trying to burn holes through his innocent façade. Seth kept his cool, even trying to look exacerbated at Para seemingly jumping to conclusions. Para turned to Mediknight, seeing as he would have just watched from his control booth instead of the arena floor. “If that’s true then why are you down here Medi, isn’t today simulation day.” Mediknight didn’t move in the slightest. “I was talking with Seth when the banging started. We didn’t even know Aegis had gotten back already.” ‘Calm like a fucking mountain lake. Goddamn I’m glad he’s on my side.’ Para softened, but remained perturbed at something. “Aegis? Did you forget we have doors for a reason?” “Heh. I…*sigh* Okay fine I’m lazy. It’s just so much easier to fly in, you know. Well you don’t but-” “Okay now you’re pushing it.” “Sorry.” “Just learn some manners already. And you!” Para switched back to Seth. Narrowly catching the relief on his face. He didn’t say anything, just narrowed his glare and walked back out.

Seth kept his relief in as the door close, Mediknight stayed calm as always, Aegis “PHEWW that-” Both Seth and Mediknight gave her simulations death glares as she turned to them openly expressing her relief in ear shot of a FUCKING SOUND HERO!! “…was a hell of a work out. I’m starving. Let’s get lunch before it’s too late.” ‘And she said I was bad at hiding things.’ A hollow throat clear emanated from Mediknight as Aegis turn to leave. She turned back again to see him pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the restored Ark. Her expression deflated as she silently mouthed “Really?” before slumping and moving to haul the Ark back into storage, mean eyeing Seth as she passed. He kept a flat smile, desperate to not dig his predicament deeper than it already was.

The canteen was sparse, a fair few lunch trays were left to serve as most of the trainees and heroes had moved on or back to training. ‘I guess Ambrose understood that serving a little extra food was better than more broken tables.’ Seth took up a tray, his power boost and overzealous weight training only adding to his hunger. Pesto Coated Power Pasta, ‘He really needs to just stop naming his dishes already.’ Seth sat at his typical table, still cracked from weeks prior but at least glued together. But instead of sitting alone he had Mediknight and Aegis taking up opposite seats to his. Mediknight didn’t take a tray, already had lunch more than likely. But Aegis scooped up one and immediately started eating, eliciting a disappointed look from Mediknight. “What? I wasn’t lying, I’m hungry.” Seth chuckled slightly, content at having someone to eat with again. But it was clear this wasn’t going to be a social call as Mediknight turned back to Seth, intent on hearing out the rest of his explanation.

What little remained of the lunch rush talked openly, and the kitchen was full of dish clinking and running water. Enough sonic cover. Seth took small bites and sighed, formulating just what to say. “I can manipulate, absorb, and use electricity to enhance myself.” He was going to have to throw a lot of himself out there. “I can’t say I have full control of my powers, but I’m not at risk of blowing up at the drop of a hat.” “Ohr a shifcken sfrip.” Aegis looked up from her plate, mouth full of pasta. “*gulp* I heard Hothead was harassing you after Para left you to stew outside. I’m… sorry I wasn’t there. The rest of the Elite get called around so much that…” Mediknight glared at her, decrying her excuses. Seth smiled. “It’s okay. Samurai kept him in line.” He looked down. “But yeah, if I get too angry… things can get a little dicey.” Mediknight straightened “Like in the Berta scenario?” Seth shuttered slightly, but his scar did not return as he shook away the memories. “I need the suit to contain my powers, to keep myself from hurting people inadvertently. And well… things have been progressing a little… too well. And Techno told me that the sphere was a mass of uber conductive metal so… may have needed to… borrow a bit.” Mediknight leaned in. “How did you know how to break it?” Seth looked up. Mediknight knew… or at least knew something.

“I can see and sense electricity, though that’s probably common. But… I guess I can feel it deeper than most. Most other electricity heroes concentrate on one aspect to enhance right, or only focus their power in certain places so they can control it better. I can focus it all over my body. I can project it sure, but I… I can weave it almost.” Both heroes squinted at his admission, watching him pull his arms up and see through himself a little. “I learned to run power through myself like physical fibers, artificial muscle, connective tissue. Like those theoretical exosuit designs that tried to build external muscles with reeler servos and carbon nanotubes.” “How does this lead back to the sphere?” Mediknight kept pressing for answers. “…It’s where I learned to do it from. I looked into it with my power. Focused around, looked for answers. It took a while. But I saw it, a thread, a key thread. It was practically just a line of freed electrons fused together into a single chain, but it was what was keeping it together. So… I worked out what that all meant, how to chain electrons. I’ll admit it was… a process. But, well you saw what it allowed me to do. But breaking it required testing it, hitting it to get a good ring out of it. The thread just needed to be resonated the right way for it to all fall apart and… yeah fall apart.”

Mediknight looked to contemplate what all that meant, Aegis meanwhile continued eating *gulp*, but poked her fork at him to get her point across. “That’s still too much power Seth.” Mediknight straightened out of his thinking. “She’s right, what you displayed is several orders of magnitude too high for a novice. Let alone someone who, by their own admission, can’t fully control their powers.” “I-” “But… in the end that’s why you came here right? To get a grip on your powers?” Seth saw the look he was getting, Mediknight was looking for coverage incase things went south, not justification to kick him out. “Yeah… well… really I just wanted to-” “That’s good enough.” Aegis finished her pasta and put her fork down. “Yeah we know, want to pay off the debts you feel are owed. I was in the room, remember?” Seth went flat and shrugged. ‘Why was I even explaining anything if they know everything apparently?’

“But listen. This kind of power can make people nervous.” Aegis was done being nonchalant. “Too many of these hot shots will see that kind of power as a threat. Trust me, for as ‘nice’ as things seem on the outside, the League is a power political furball. Everyone is vying to be seen as strong or useful. It’s the only way to get anywhere around here. A culture of fat trimming and skyscrapingly high recruitment requirements has turned this place inside out since…” Aegis hesitated. “Since the crisis. Technically your class is an outlier. Well thanks to me at least. But once you guys are in you’ll see for yourselves. The League’s not what it used to be.” Mediknight drew back attention. “You need to keep your power hidden. Just enough to pass as a novice. Though seeing as Para has redacted your dossier to the barest scrap of information, this won’t be difficult officially. Just-” “Just keep holding back…” Aegis barged back in. Seth wanted to point out the contradiction but- “I know what I told you before. Just… sometimes… *sigh* it’s better if people don’t know just how strong you really are.” Seth held off, but remembered what Ms. Mahan had said. ‘Is… is she really holding back that much?’ Seth smiled again, chuckled at the fact that she was right. “That’s something I can do. Besides, everyone thinks I’m just a powerless rich kid with a fancy suit anyway. They aren’t looking at me as a power threat… right?” Aegis smirked and nodded, but Mediknight looked like he knew something else. Aegis and Seth looked at him, worried slightly. “I don’t know much, but I heard Para say your suit was dangerous. A weapon too powerful for a recruit to wield. I don’t know if he intends something, but I think you scared him during your Berta scenario.” Aegis looked down. “Scared me too.” Seth sighed. “I scared myself if I’m gonna be honest.”

Everyone stopped for a beat before Aegis shook the sullen thoughts away. “At any rate, just… don’t go breaking any more unbreakable things from now on okay.” Seth shrugged and smiled. “Well… technically it’s not unbreakable now. Or at least it’s a little more breakable than it was before. I’m not good at sewing on the fly like that.” “Well now you reminded me, you need to watch out for Techno. If he found out what you did… he’d probably want you vivisected.” Seth went wide eyed at the implication of being strapped to a lab table and cut open to be studied. “Hey, just keep your head on straight and things will be fine.” Seth grimly smiled, but melted back to genuine has Aegis chuckled off the tension. He had his allies, had true friends in this world. Hopefully they stayed that way. Seth finished his lunch and walked back out while Aegis and Mediknight returned to their duties. He walked up to his suit, had to leave it outside the canteen so it wouldn’t draw attention. Lifting it up, the Ark piece jostled inside causing a hollow series of tinks. He had what he needed to turn his suit into its ultimate form. One that could keep his secret and allow him to let loose if he ever really needed to. It was time to get forging again.