In every direction Seth could hear it. Like a whisper that couldn't be droned out or stifled. It cut him off from the Garkah, covered up their calls out to him. He felt their struggle to reach, but rapidly lost that as well. All he could feel, all he could express, the only thing that showed through the building emotional fog… was rage. Rage at being made to work harder and harder for his dream, for his chance to be a hero. Rage at the bias and passive ridicule he had to suffer through the whole way. Rage at having to relive the hell he escaped, not once but twice. Rage at having the only things tying him to his past life destroyed before him for someone else’s amusement, because of someone else’s ideals. Rage at the pain and struggle of it all. Rage at having to go all out and risk exposure just to satisfy and refute that bias. And rage at losing it all despite everything. But most of all… Rage that all of it is because of Para.

Seth rose from the charred and strained bench, electric tendrils discharging from the wall, lighting up the darkened arena for none to see. He took a step like a mountain deciding to move, and disregarding everything in its path. The transparent barrier protecting that failed bench melted and popped, arcs scorching through it and metal caving it to a grotesque puddle. Every step was titanic, slow and thunderous like a god scorned. The sand at his feet glassed as his still transformed suit burned with new found excess heat. But every step brought something else along with it. A nostalgic... easing calm. He could still feel himself, but it was numb and buried. He was heavy, straining against the inside of his suit. He couldn’t move his mouth, but he could see right through the burned away view slits like they were his eyes. As that red glow and burdening darkness began to fade. It was gradual, the dim arena gave his mind a chance to clear the fog without outside stimuli. It was still there, but waned with every echoing hypnotic step toward the door.

The world soon stopped being so empty, rage and depression still numbing his body, but he could feel more with every step. He could feel the reception still going on in the foyer, family and friends congratulating the new recruits and partying with the other heroes. He couldn’t make out who all was there, but he didn’t care, he couldn't. His mind knew full well it shouldn’t remain in this state, it couldn't. He could remember what Aegis had said, that he just had to hold out for HQ to take his case. He struggled against the rage clouding his mind, felt it pull down at him. But he could resist, he just wanted this day to end. So he just had to get through the party to reach the dorms and nothing else would matter anymore. He just had to not get noticed. A clawed hand grabbed the handle of the door, it burned under its grip and was narrowly pulled off by absentminded strength. The light from the outside burned his eyes, but dimmed before he could squint. And what was waiting for him battered what resolve had been won.

The foyer was packed, most of the audience was still here from the look of it. They thronged around the recruits and their families, around the heroes who fought today, around the members of the Elite still here. ‘Too… many people!’ Seth couldn’t see all of them, but he caught a few voices over the crowd. Aegis, Ziyou… and Para were still here. Mediknight was probably back at the medical level of the Hill. Samurai and Kaz were definitely off celebrating somewhere else. Erdwut and the rest were probably off to a different assignment, that’s what it sounded like given his demeanor before. The crowd was dense but amorphous, they flowed from recruit to hero and back. A passage through the main thoroughfare of the periphery seemed to at least be kept clear out of courtesy. Seth lumbered toward it, having to walk through part of the crowd surrounding David. He couldn’t will himself to move faster, just holding it together was adding to the drag on his mind, but for some reason the crowd parted and… cowered back as he approached. He didn’t pay them any mind, he couldn’t, but heard them complain about the heat, and whimper the sight of him.

His suit was getting too hot to even walk around in, the skeletal frame found an in through the numb, singed at the parts left barren by the loss of their gel. He had to hurry. The tiles of the periphery creaked and burned under metal talons, the tail dragged along and scorched its own meandering path, he couldn’t stop. He cleared the crowd, turned and started toward the dormitory hall, toward sanctuary. A momentary uplift, a second wind against the drag. But all it brought with it was more resolution in the hell surrounding him. He felt eyes on him, the eyes of bias, the eyes of malice, of worry and concern, of pity and disgust. They didn’t matter, they shouldn't matter, he just had to make it a few more meters to get out of this crowded powder keg. There was nothing to stop him, nothing between him ending this accursed day once and for all, nothing but- “HEY TINMAN!!!” A sudden searing halt, and all the progress he'd made was obliterated... as Para yelled out over the sounds of the crowd. ‘You… just had to… didn’t you!?!’

It took every he had left to not turn and face his challenger, to just let him make an ass of himself for everyone to see, to not let go and murder him here and now!. But the quiet that resulted from that callous call only added to the pressure upon him. He could see out the right side of his helmet, a part in the crowd was growing, revealing where Para and Aegis had been entertaining their audience. The center of the foyer, and the densest part of the party. He could see Aegis’ face in her palm, but purposefully avoided looking at Para for as long as he cou- “What’s wrong!!? Having trouble coming to terms!!?” The world was trying to fade away, the only clarity being the exact spot he was trying to avoid. The crowd was completely silent, the awkward situation only added more pressure on Seth to act. He could see his room, see the door to sanctuary, but his body refused to move the way he wanted to, the periphery fading to an indistinct smug. An impossible destination. The tiles at his feet melting under his hesitancy. He struggled to keep himself from acknowledging Para any more, from inevitably falling away again. But every word was like another strike of a dry match.

He felt the slight tinge of the Garkah cutting through the fog, but they needed time. He heard Aegis’ palm grab Para’s shoulder in restraint. “Okay Para, that’s enough-” The sound of it getting slapped away. “No!! That’s not enough!! I warned him from DAY 1 that he wasn’t meant for this! DAY 1!! And yet here he is, unable to deal with reality!” Every fiber of Seth’s being screamed at him, betrayed his will, wanted to turn Para into a paste streak across the foyer. The tiles boiled under his feet. The tinge finally broke through enough to get to his ear, Threat blaring through the fog with all the Garkah could muster. “Seth!!! Listen!! You need to hold on, you need to stay here!! We can get you clear but you need to stay yourself!! You need to HOLD ON!!!” The part in the crowd grew as the situation grew tenser, and Para seemed to go on unabated. “Unable to deal with the fact his suit dominates his identity!! Unable to deal with the rigors of actual combat!! Unable to pass a challenge without resorting to outright cheating!!” “Seth you need to shut him out!!! Don’t listen to him!! Focus on me!!!” The part grew wider, people pressed back. Most to avoid ire, but some began to wince in pain away from the gap. “I mean look at him!! He can’t even turn his suit back!! He can’t deal with his own problems!! Can’t control himself when the situation calls for it!!” “SETH!!! You NEED to HOLD ON!!!” Para shifted, turned away from Aegis’ aggressively glaring face and looked straight into Seth’s struggling eye. “In the end he never deserved to be a hero!” That eye finally saw him, every fiber and sense saw nothing but him. And that match was finally lit, and the whole damn keg ignited.

Perception snapped the world to a stop, time froze in fear of what had just been awakened. Even the world fell away in slow motion, the pull dragging Seth down deeper inside himself too slow on the uptake. Like he’d fallen into an event horizon of his own being. Soon there was nothing… no one… an empty void overlapping him until there were only two things left in the entire world. Para… and Rage. Trained reaction times paid their dues as the heroes in the foyer caught up. Aegis moving faster than the rest, but her only winnings were a vain crawl in comparison… as that armored head turned toward Para with all the malice of that scorned god brought to bear, and that left eye rising over its horizon like a supercritical supernova.

Perception shifted and reality finally caught up with it, but the change was faster than even Seth could feel, faster than he could even fall away from himself, faster than what should even be possible. Aegis was pulling her arms up to react, heroes were just now stancing to begin moving in kind, and Para was finally catching up with what had occurred and opening his eyes from the smug expression he put them in. Opening them to the supernova square in his face, a clawed and plated fist tearing the air apart to meet it. The gap between evaporated like it was never there in the first place. And the reckoning coming upon him at long last. The strike came at equal speed, no obstacles, no intermediaries, no refs, no bullshit threats to keep him in line. And no escape this time. All of Seth’s rage solidified around that fist, power boiling like blood from a wound and wisping into jagged forms. All the hell that he’d experienced powered it forward, burning everything away as fuel. And that fist was never going to be stopped… ever… again!

To the heroes and the observant in the crowd, in one instant Seth was across the room burning a hole in the floor and glaring a hole through Para’s head, the next he was standing where Para used to be, arm thrown out with all its energy rippling existence itself in its wake. The punch made contact faster than it could ever have been seen, plate mail going supersonic at point blank range. Metal crunched Para’s left cheek, his face barely able to contort in reaction... as it took in that oozing red power. Trained and hardened bone shattered, toughened flesh rippled and tore, and an eye ceased to exist in its socket as that power rejected him. The imperceptible instant flashed before everyone’s eyes, as the material world caught up with reality. First came the torn apart air crashing back together, filling the gap that had been left in the wake, the one crossed without a fuck given to physics. Next, Para shot away, smashing through the glass façade of the foyer and into the night sky over the Hill’s stairs, blood trailing his spiraling path. Finally all the aforementioned actions lead to their inevitable reaction, as all that displaced air rebounded back and- *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*.

People, heroes, everything was shot back, vain screams were drowned out by the deafening blast, lights and displays shattered and left the lobby in darkness, and the glass façade exploded out, unable to contain the wind force pressed against it. But Seth couldn't care for his actions... he wasn't in control anymore. All that mattered, all that could be seen, all that could be known was tearing Para apart. Aegis barely withstood the blast, feet digging ruts into the tile as she guarded and counter thrusted against the blast wave. A stinging moment of pure ringing strain and she was back up, staring at the monster she'd failed to stop. A desperate reach tried to catch and stop him this metal behemoth, but a foot had already cratered the floor to follow its target. Another less intense boom, kicked her away buffeted what was left of the foyer, and smashed the bare framework of the façade across the front of this false mountain of justice. That mountain of metal disappearing into the night sky, trailing glass into a fine refracting dust against the dark sky.

The night was middling, cloudy and laden, but Para was clear as a flare shot up for all to see. The air rushed passed as servos shifted midflight, straightening upright and bringing both hands together over head. Para was tumbling through the air, half conscious from the pain and slowing from the drag. He tumbled upright just in time for hell to catch up to him, death in its burning eye.

Arms spiked him down on his gut, momentum cut through sheer force. Para shot down into the stairs, back cratering several concrete steps on impact. A near ton of metal fell straight down and landed the stair up from him, slamming down and causing Para to rise off the broken ground in line. A plated talon leaned over and caved in his side before it slammed back down to give chase. Para tumbled again, bouncing off step after step in a sickening pinwheel. Excessive weight crushed step after step as it bounded after him. It caught up again, a right brought high down on to his chest. Para guarded, but his arm shattered and he was bounced again, the snapping sounds mixing in with the crumble of rubble. He bounced up with his legs in the air, the left subsuming one of them pulling him up. It tore into it power oozing out with out regard or control as it dragged him high overhead, the whole suit continuing to crash down the stairs at increasing speed. The left bashed Para to the side, still conscious enough to put his arms up in defense. More breaking snaps as he was smashed into the stairs. Momentum followed though, rebounding Para back over to the other side. Another bash, concrete scattered and more bones broken by the brutish display. Another rebound, Para whipped from side to side, slammed him down again and again as they both neared the bottom.

Finally the rebound halted, the other hand adding its hold, and pulling Para’s barely conscious and broken body overhead. Talons kicked off and leapt over the last few stories of stairs, flinging Para down to their base as the whole suit flipped over. Para crunched down, the concreted path shattered like his bones. Torrential weight slammed down, talons clawing away at all the built up inertia, eyes still locked on Para with all the nuance of a suicidal star. The concrete of the foot path turned to powder and clouded the new battlefield, chunks of stair rumbling down the incline of the Hill, adding more dust to the air. The street lights of the dense but wide foot path illuminated everything as the suit rose from its landing point, claws and talons trailing frying concrete as they lifted. Nothing stood between them and Para… nothing but- *ZZZEEEEEHHHWWWW*

A laser bloomed the dust obscuring the stairs, tracing a melting line in front of a lifted foot. The stylized concrete burned away and left glowing with heat as three heroes came bounding through the dust. Phazer Shock landed down in the center, hand still smoking and leveled at Seth. Her husband Glacial Glaz came in on her right, ice coating his hands in preparation for what may be needed. Lastly was Ziyou on her left, all the joy sapped from her face, replaced with disappointment and condemnation. Phazer lowered her hand, but kept an obvious charge on it. “You ought not to have done that kid!!” Glaz gestured toward Para. “Yeah! Para’s a piece of shit! But he’s our piece of shit!!” Para twitched in his crater, regaining a little consciousness and turning on to his one not-broken arm to watch the proceedings. Ziyou never broke her aggressive stance. Phazer releveled her hand. “And an attack on him is an attack on all of us! So don’t even think about crossing that line, just stand down and-” The sound of metal crunching melted concrete as that step was taken in wanton defiance. She hardened off the insulting interruption. “You asked for it then!!”

Phazer blasted without hesitation, the light red beam flashed into the suit’s shoulder, a burst of dissipating heat and the recoil were all that resulted. The metal glowed slightly from the heat, but it was of no consequence. What was a problem... was that someone was getting in the way! Weighted steps continued unabated, talons tearing through yet unblemished concreate. Phazer looked unimpressed. “Guess there’s nothing else to be done.” She looked to each side, a silent acknowledgement from both her compatriots before suddenly raising both hands. A duel flare up and lock back into her chest, dazzling lights held tight in those palms and loosed with set fervor. A rapid cycling succession of flashes, a barrage of blasts not too dissimilar to Hothead’s, but considerably quicker. The first blast struck the head, dissipating in a burst of heat and scattered light. Then the next twenty hit in quick sequence. A bright show of light and heat but again, like Hothead’s barrage, it was nothing more than a distraction.

A foot went to lift again but it stuck fast, the sound of creaking and condensing mist. The barrage let up as the head looked down, foot frozen solid to the path. The other foot quickly following suit, a long trail of frost leading back toward Glaz’s pressed hand on the ground. But something was missing, Ziyou wasn’t in the lineup anymore. The right lazily pulled up on simple reflex as an intricately drawn tiger came slamming hard into the side of the head. The ice at the feet shattered as the suit crashed down to the side, claw and teeth marks indented into its surface. Ziyou was holding a lot back before, keeping her real strength in line with the competition, but now she was letting loose and using every bit she had.

The left stabbed down to stop the suit’s fall as it shifted. Talons scarred the concrete turning toward Ziyou, the animalistic movements from before rearing their head again. Living metal pulling itself up in an instant jerking refutation of its blocked lethargy. That low growl escaping again before it shot back for retaliation, as she summoned another of her tattoos. A swirling circular motion into a full three limb block created a turtle shell before her, a hardened immaterial defense that was raked with devastating effect. The shell splintered and dissolved in the right’s wake. The left reared back and loosing a stabbing claw. But her stance shifted behind that obliterated defense, her arms meeting and pushing against the incoming claw. And they didn’t stop there, they grabbed hold as she spun around drawing that claw out farther than intended, pulling it over with its own force, and the suit along with it. The suit was judo flipped past Ziyou, smashing down and tumbling on its side. A claw forced down scrapped away at momentum, but found the suit stopped sooner than expected. Another bout of condensing mist, but now the whole suit found moving a struggle. Frost creep up the helmet and arm, Glaz freezing it completely in place.

Ziyou came off her turn, stancing up to strike her now vulnerable opponent. A flowing dance that seemed to gather strength behind her right, a flowing form summoned in kind. A dragon punch. The ice thickening over the suit creaked and whined as it struggled, it was not going to go down like this. Ziyou launched forward, rushed by the sight of its obvious strain. She had to knock Seth out quick or he’d overpower them. But it was already too late for that. The ice shattered, claw dragging hard turning the suit violently, shooting its lower half toward Ziyou in a massive tail swipe. She leapt over, avoiding sweeping legs and tail, but didn’t have a clear target to hit with her full punch. But that didn’t matter as a right shot up and choked the dragon wrapped around her charged up arm. Concrete slashed apart as the left launched the suit opposite, flipped over and dragging Ziyou along for the ride. She was dragged under, the right whipping away her like an underhanded catapult, skipping her across the concrete, the dragon on her arm dissipating as she focused on avoiding road burn. A sheet of ice met her as she neared her comrades, causing her to slide rather than scrape against the path. The suit landed down, righting itself toward its opponents as they caught Ziyou at the end of the slide. She stood up, barely worse for wear, but a grim look on her face for what her rebuke meant.

Phazer put a hand on her shoulder, another silent signal as she took over center stage again. Hands a dazzling light show of charging energy, she leveled them again, but this time formed them together and combined their output. She folded her fingers in, creating a chamber to concentrate all the energy that began accumulating. It took on a brighter hue, spilled out from her hands, and began heating the air around her. A sudden flash and halo of dispersion, her arms recoiling like a gun bolt. The blast was bigger, a cannon shot compared to a standard bullet, and near double in speed. A guard flashed up before it impacted, an understanding of the disparity immediately. Impact dissipated the shot into streaks of light in an outline of the guard, and more heat and recoil. The parted streaks spilling about and melting holes into the path, into the buildings close by. Before the guard could shift down, a second shot struck it. Then another. And another.

The light show kept the burning eyes down, and the guard up. Each shot broke into more plasma like trails, melting concrete and catching unlucky fixtures. Streetlights and signs bent and snapped to the ground, windows brightly oozed and shattered, but the suit held its ground. The dazzle became the only light, blinded out everything else, obfuscated the target, flared up that burning anger. Brought that growl higher above as it drove it lower. A shift low dodged the next shot, and the three that were chained behind it. The suit clawed to the ground, the animal inside front and center as it tore the path asunder under fire. Phazer shifted, deflecting hard as it practically slithered across the ground at speed, claws scraping the concrete apart. The next shot missed, quick sidewinder motions made for bad targeting. Phazer kept shooting, trying instead just to slow it down. Chained shots drove the suit to dodge wide, stop, and find its opening. Each shot hitting the concrete in a shower of dazzling ionized debris, keeping him blind to what was happening.

A few yards from her position the suit went terminal, disregarding her attacks completely and charging straight in. Shots spattered over the head, but just heated the surface. It didn’t slow down in the slightest. Phazer charged another shot, a look of desperation on her face. As vision blurred from the last shot, the sounds of the others carried under. Ice forming and concentrating, weighted grunts and hurried breaths. But they were ignored, Phazer had to be taken out. She was in the way, and Para was right behind her! Phazer’s charged up shot doubled in luminosity before the suit made it to her, only a few more feet separating them. Suddenly her fingers shot up, the concentrating chamber no longer containing the blast. It exploded in her hands, a blinding flash struck the eyes unprepared, flashbanged recoil forcing it reeling back. The hands shot up instinctually to shield the eyes, stopping the whole suit dead in its tracks. It writhed and shook the blindness away, a bloodshot glare directed at Phazer adding to its already burning stare. But what those eyes saw wasn’t just Phazer.

Ziyou was between them, a pillar of ice on her shoulder, and a grim determination on her face. It was a lens, like the one used during Phazer and Glaz’s challenge, but it was thick as a tree trunk and long as a bazooka. And Phazer was already shooting into it, too quick to react in time. The light from her hands refracting, focusing, and refracting again. The blast became a beam of indiscriminate power, directed luminosity, and ultimate condemnation. And it was leveled at the chest. The only thing able to be done was watch as Ziyou mouthed out one final retort as the beam fired out. “Sorry about this kid.”

Impact recoiled the suit back, but for an instant seemed to do little else. More splattered light and heated metal. But suddenly the night lit up beyond the street lights, as the beam burned through in a matter of milliseconds. Layer after layer melted away, threads snapped and overpowered... flesh rent away. Weight was nullified by the strength of the blast, the beam dissipating and burning its image into the past sky, and leaving its path a gasping hollow. The suit crashed backward to where it originally started its charge, concrete chucks loosed and following, carried by the force. Dust kicked up in their wake, clouding the battlefield once again. And Seth skidded to a stop face down… into a world of black.

He could feel again… but it may as well have not pulled him up from the abyss he had fallen into. The pain, unlike anything he’d ever felt. Bone stabbed through as he tried to breath, pressing cauterized char desperate to hold back the void in his chest. He was weak, like his life was draining away. Strength oozing down under gravity's pull and stagnating away as it pooled. A chill rose counter, emptied him out and made him horridly aware. That something was gone from where it should be... and a true void was calling him. He saw what little he could from below himself, grim perception falling on him yet again, exacerbating his pain beyond what it ever should be. A single spot glared down on him through the void that encroached on all sides, that had swallowed him whole and now dragged out his agony. He could make out figures arrayed against him, the devastation that surrounded them... and... Para. He was holding his face, struggling for purchase in the hole he had been left in, wincing and gritting against his own agony. He could still see him despite the loss of an eye, see him struggling against the only recourse left to stop his fall. Deadly force.

Seth understood it, he was dying. He could feel the gaping hole in his chest, edges screaming their loss and flooding out his mind. Blood desperately percolating and sputtering through the cauterized cavity, muscle tensing and failing to flee the hollow void, that creeping cold spreading to every vain. His heart was gone, burned away and cored through his chest. The weight of the world falling on his back. It was crushing, his arms strained to keep him up, keep him from falling into that true void that called over the one surrounding him. The only thing he could do was look out at the ones who no doubt did this to him and wonder... what happened. What did he- “Just die already.”

Seth could see Para mouthing through his pain, silent words that no one but him could hear. A... a connection forcibly made and forcibly blared… and it was too much to bear. The abyss closed in around him, like… a hand wrapping around his head, keeping him from looking away, keeping him from letting that wrathful burn die out. “Die!” Seth felt his blood move on its own, warmth defy creeping chill, the void recede where the abyss took hold. “Die!!” His body moved on its own as he felt the hollow of his chest bulge inward, flesh roil through cauterization, bone rebuild along the threads, metal and layer over top reconstructed in kind to fill that self swallowing gap. His heart reformed and beat like an earthquake, lurched him against the weight pressing him down. And dropped his senses to a knives edge... as those silent words stopped being silent. “JUST DIE YOU UNDESERVING BASTARD!!!”

The abyss closed like a trap around him, a cellophane mold that suffocated formed around him, till only his right eye stayed open to the world, but that was slowly loosing out. Seth felt himself fall even deeper without moving the slightest bit, like everything he was, everything he is, was being consumed by the abyss, taken over completely, blotted out and subsumed. But... he didn’t care. All that mattered, all that he knew, all that he could care about… was tearing Para apart. And so he let that abyss flood over him, take hold over him, let it throw his pain on to the fire. Seth stopped feeling again, what was left of his consciousness fell back like all the times before. But the abyss now held sway were subconscious kept its vigil, kept him focused and targeted on that one single goal. Kept him on the path he'd chosen for himself, even through this mud drenched detour of wanton vengeance. Now though... where self-control used to reign… now there was naught but the hell that had been wrought.

The strain of metal tearing open, a new rising grinding growl, it was clear to the heroes Seth was still active despite fatal wound. That their attack had an effect, just not the one they hoped for. Ziyou tossed the lens cannon to Glaz and took hard position on Phazer’s left again. She wasn't going to let him through this time. Glaz prepped the cannon for another shot, refreezing melted sections before stancing up on Phazer’s right. Phazer prepped her hands, charged up more shots, but she held her fire. They had to be ready for whatever came next. And for what ever- *Bwwoooo* The surviving streetlights illuminating the path flickered in sequence, escalating waves of power loss like an out of control tide. The suit seemed to steady itself, the burn in its eyes returning and growing in luminosity, illuminating the presumed grave they were consigned to. A wispy glow rose off like steam, turning the air into localized aurora and flashed to visibility with each darkening wave. A final wave turned the path to blown out darkness, before the lights shattered their true overcharged deaths. Crystal dust refracting that overblown ionization. The path was left to the cold night, save for Phazer’s charged up hands, the lights looking down from the Hill, and the plasma steam congealing around Seth. The edges of the suit began to illuminate with the burn in the eyes, a rising whir eliciting the sense of a charging up machine as it grew brighter. Arcs of electricity added to the dark, lighting up brief snippets of the battlefield as they kicked the air and arced from the horns on his helmet. The head stayed down, but the ionizing glow kept increasing. Brighter and brighter, shifting colors as that aurora was siphoned away. As that red burning eye spread its weep to every edge of the suit, power dripping and solidifying from that tight shut maw. The heroes hardened, wondered just what he was going to do, but they were ready for it. They knew his style, they knew what to expect, and they were ready for everything he could-*RRRRRRAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH*

That metal maw exploded open, the glow crescendoed, and the world was caught in oppressive perception. The sudden back blast of atomized concrete was all the warning the heroes got as the head whipped up like an out of control fire hose, a beam of blood red plasma tearing from it. The beam snaked up the street in the barest fraction of a second, climbing the side of the buildings on their left, chewing a path of caustic fire through everything it touched. It whipped back over again, the heroes only just now realizing their peril. Glaz was the only one who acted in time, a disparity in perception and an understanding of what was coming. He dropped the cannon and tackled his hesitating wife to the ground as the beam flashed through the air her head used to occupy. Para looked back in ducking reflex as the beam cut into the stairs behind him, the glow of superheated material his only warning.... as its path finally realized its demise. A fiery ribbon, overheated and loosed of its bonds, exploded in sequence. Buildings were caved as their facades blew out, and burning rubble splattered across the battlefield, the stairs further scattered like shrapnel.

Para ducked again from the shower of smoking stair pieces, painfully hacking away the dust filled air. He shot his head back up to the fight at hand, but went wide eyed as the horrid result came into view. Glaz lifted himself off his wife as they shook off melted ejecta, but he reflexively looked back... and froze at the sight. Phazer finally rose in hurried fashion, but was stopped by the grim air she received from her comrades. She turned in kind... and joined them in looking upon the headless body of Ziyou still standing in her position. No blood, just a cauterized and smoking stump twitching off nerve impulses that arrived too late. Intention consumed by that wanton disparity. Nothing left of her but a limp body falling in on itself, crumpling to the ground like an empty shell. The horrified stares and tyrannical weight falling on the heroes was interrupted, the hacking crunch and weighted scraping of the suit rising from its blasted position turned them from their horror, the burn in its eyes brighter than the smoldering debris. They burned through the dust and darkness that was left in its wake. The right eaten away to a low blue glow, but the left burning red like nothing possible in this world.

Looks of horror and shock turned melted, sparked, ignited to rage and determination. Phazer seeming to already have her pilot light on full blast, hands overcharging and a- “AAAAAAHHHHHHHH” bonfire in her heart threatening obliteration to to that wrought hell. Her hands turned to dazzle laden blur, rapid fire barrage of shots cutting away at the dusty battlefield, bombarding the suit’s position without a care for focus or aim, just raw power. They splashed across the atomized concrete, lit up the path and everything still in it with every impact. The ones that hit may as well have been misses though, spatterings of light and heat over inscrutable metal. The suit stepped out of its crater, undeterred and unaffected by the blasts as it started forward. Titanic steps accelerating and crushing what was left of the path. Glaz broke from his horror filled stupor next, shaking his own hesitation away and lifting the ice lens cannon upon his shoulder, strength burdened but too determined to care anymore. He locked down in front of his wife, cannon squarely on his left and ice freezing his position solid for another shot at whatever the hell charging back at them.

Phazer loosed the last of her ineffectual blasts and pulled both her hands back, focusing all her power into this next beam. The light and melted dust from the blasts cleared from around in time for the suit to see Phazer hands, veined in light, double slamming the back end of the lens cannon, causing it to rival its left eye. An omnipotent shift threw it forward on to all fours, that ‘faux’ maw shooting open and welling up more power counter to the cannon’s refracting. The beam of focused light shot from the cannon with recoil to match its new intensity, dust and fried air haloed away opposite the beam’s path. But that light scattering against acrid power discharging as the suit fired at the last moment, new found control keeping them in line. An equal match, equal fires burning against each other, but not so equal fuel as the maw won out. Light bunched and caved, was pushed back and out, streaks splaying off and burning more of the already ruined path. Phazer kept firing, but her beam was being pushed right back at her, all the way back to the cannon. She recoiled when she realized, releasing her beam to try and dodge, but the suit’s beam followed her path to the exact. It refracted and defocused, lost power and definition, but it was too much for the ice. Phazer shot up a desperate guard as the beam hit the last lens and the cannon gave out. A wave of hardened red burned ice shattered and tore into Glaz’s shoulder, bashed Phazer at point blank, sending her to flying into the rubbled staircase behind Para. Meanwhile Glaz was writhed to the ground, face and arm surviving off burns and cuts, but his shoulder thoroughly broken and gashed open. In a matter of moments and at pitiful expense, the path was clear once more. The suit could see its target as it chomped its maw closed, as those eyes glared at the cowering Para still agonizingly frozen in his hole. There was nothing left to get in the way and nothing was going to get in the way… ever again!

It rose back up and stomped forward, talons cracking and tearing through what little solid concrete remained. Nothing stopping it, nothing between them, nothing- *SSHEEEEEhhhh* but a growing wall of ice. Glaz stood back up, arm wincing in pain but it was powered through. He'd slammed both hands to the ground, coating the entire area in ice, before forcing them both up to build the ice in to shape. The ice wall blocked out the suit’s vision… Got in the way! A flashed up left dashed it like the weak defiance it was! Ice crunched and boiled as the suit charged forward, no more delays and no more pitiful excuses! Glaz fought his pain, folded his arms at his sides before shooting them up one after the other. Large ice spikes shot up in rapid succession, some set to intercept as the suit careened forward. They tried and failed to skewer into the armor, shattering on impact or getting obliterated as they formed in front. The suit slashed and bashed through the forming field of ice, undeterred and never again stopped. Glaz realized the futility of his impromptu road hazard, shifting back again to prepare a last ditch construct.

He slammed both hands down, the crack of his shoulder eliciting an extremely pained grimace, but he did what he had to. The ice in front of him squared off and rose in a foot thick wall, rising painfully slow in the face of what was basically a charging metal laceroid. The last few feet were forced up as he launched his hands up from the ground, recoiling in neglected pain. He fell forward on his right side, pressing against his wall, keeping his good arm solid upon it to harden it further. The ice steamed and condensed the air around it, creaked as it hardened tighter and tighter. But the stomping grew loud over everything… before the wall shattered like glass. A pair of horns leading the way through. Glaz fell with his wall, onto his broken shoulder and under a spattering of quickly melting ice.

The suit pulled itself back up straight, left eye blaring through the icy fog. Glaz looked up from his broken spot on the ground, the ice raining around him reflecting the crimson light from that eye like it was the only bright spot left in the world. The suit paid no mind to him, he didn’t matter anymore, he wasn’t in the way anymore! But Glaz would have none of it. He crawled over, wincing at his broken arm, and reached out toward an armored leg, latching his hand to it. His hand seared upon the overheated metal, but ice quickly formed despite this. Hot metal screamed alongside creaking ice as the suit was seemingly locked down in desperate defiance. He was determined to slow Seth down no matter what… But Seth wasn’t in control any more.

The frosted foot rose, ice shattering away, scolding flesh to char. That oozing, malice soaked red bleed pouring out from the edges. Glaz reeled, writhed, but his hand melted in place, carrying him up with it until his half broken body was underneath. Glaz strained, looked up at him, looked up at the monster he'd tried to stop, but saw no mercy in that burning red eye. As it brought its gaze down on him. The plate mail talons slammed down, catching his neck and crushing it into the ground, turning it hard against itself and with a horrifying snap. The hand fell limp away as Glaz gurgled what little air he could swallow. The suit pulled its foot away and stomped it down onto the dusted and melted concrete passed his darkening eyes. Nothing will stand in the way, nothing will stop this! Ever!! Again!!

Phazer pulled herself off the rubble of the Hill’s stairs, charging hands cutting through the still hanging dust. She stumbled over half charred stairs and crumbled concrete, narrowly tripping into Para’s crater. Para had a look of demanded attention, he reached out to her as she pulled away back to the fight. He snatched the pink border of her surplus pant leg, dragging her back as best he could. She looked back in anger at the audacity, but didn’t care to scold him in such a dire situation. A look drowning in pain and desperation, his voice a hushed garble of what it used to be. “We need to get out of here! Now!!” She pulled her leg free in disappointed fury and turned back as the fog of war fell away… under that sickening, bone crushing snap.

She watched as the suit lifted its foot from on top of her dying husband’s neck, his head turned toward her against itself. She watched the light leave his eyes as foamed blood dripped from his mouth. The suit refocusing its gaze ahead, watching a kindred rage ignite between it and its target. Phazer clenched her hands down until blood boiled up, frying to steam as her overcharge flared brighter than her hands could take. Tears streamed down her contorted face, but quickly evaporated as her eyes shot up at Seth’s, calm red turned to a near matching energized burn. The energy in her hands flared up into her arms, veins scorching their paths as her skin failed to contain this conflagrating fury. The dust and fog on the battlefield was pushed away in inanimate fear, as a sadness wrought wail erupted from her as she reared back in wanton rage. She slammed her hands together, open palms of pure uncontained light. The air rushed away from her as she formed all that energy together, a ball of light forming into a true new born sun, solar like flares escaping malicious focus driving it bigger and bigger. The ground soon quaked as her feet cracked into the path, as all of her fuel was poured into that fire of all consuming rage. But suddenly that small star narrowed down to a point, a flash compression, a frightening stillness, a darkened calm before the- *BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

A column of red hued light blasted out down the path, swallowing the suit in a deluge of rage of its own doing. The darkened path was burned away as that rival sun made its grand entrance, lighting up the Hill and much of the city in the process. Phazer held her beam, not in control of her power and far from caring, wailing behind her rage made manifest. But the deafening drone of this localized solar flare was under shadowed. Streams of lights flaked off at increasingly close distances, a masked rumble persisted through the torrential drone and grew closer... as a pair of horns rose against the current of her handheld sunshine. Phazer barely had time to see through her blind rage as those horns cut closer and closer and the stomping of metal on melt and rubble grew louder and louder. Until those horns withdrew, the rumble stopped… and that metallic maw broke through her stellar column.

In a flash it eclipsed her sunlight, the blackhole it had become now its own manifest. The solar storm ceased with jarring speed, another sun swallowed whole and leaving its mark burned into every retina. Phazer recoiled back, her eyes dimming from their energetic wrath. Her face turned from wailing anger to slow realization of pain, as the suit rose up from its chomp, the burning light from her conflagrating hands still desperately shining through the gaps in the maw’s metal teeth. A new welling of fear and horror drowned her wrath, as she stared into the unblinking red burn that had just outshined her own. Her terror tried to well up into- “AH-“ But it was snuffed out as a right flashed over and caught her in the side, one soaked in that red energy refusing mercy, raking her away with the extreme malice afforded to those... who keep getting it the way! Metal claws tore skin and heavy cloth, scorched paths of char out of what they caught, but all the force was put into throwing her away. To shoot her into the rubbled facades of the buildings that had been destroyed to little more than concrete and rebar. Her tumbling flight only ended with her back hitting a load bearing wall that kept the building up despite itself. Another unnatural snap of bone, followed by the chorus of falling debris as the building caved a loose floor on to her. What other sounds that could have signaled her end were masked by the dying cacophony.

The suit never turned to be sure, it didn’t care. Its eye burned ever brighter down at Para, broken and staring on in horror from his hole. It lifted its head to the side and whipped it open, disgustedly spitting out the charred remains of Phazer’s still smoking hands for him to understand, and to break the hellish silence that now hung over the now pitch black battlefield. “Ever… Again…” Its voice was metallic, jagged, buzzing with electricity at every syllable. And it wasn’t Seth’s voice. “Ever Again!!” Para squirmed in fear, trying to crawl away from him as best as his shattered body could muster. But Seth… or whatever the hell this was… clearly was never going to allow him to escape- “EVER AGAIN!!!”

Its still red scorching right reared up, extended open with all of the malice wrought by this constant impedance. It wanted to tear through Para with every ounce of rage Seth had feed it, with all the power it had siphoned away, with all the pain it had felt brought upon the world around it. The maw roaring an unnatural electric roar as it loosed itself, the ground atomizing in its wake, air breaking apart around its clawed fingers. But... despite its want and wanton purpose... it all came to a whiplashing halt as a blessid field of translucent orange energy flared up in between. And a pair of hands cut through the last dregs of kicked up dust. Aegis had arrived.

Her expression was fire, her body language a raw message of scorn. Her heartfelt plea was disregarded and lost in the storm of compounding anger that had finally been halted. The suit froze at the sight, an invulnerable impassable line stopping it from ending this all. It snaped its claw closed, snarl at her arrival, metallic echoes of what had become of Seth. But realization flashed through the sudden anger at being impeded. The suit reared back again, it knew it could go right through that shield like it wasn’t there. Aegis looked on in fiery condemnation, awaiting the truth of his fall to mindless wrath. But it grew to confusion as Seth held his attack. The metal maw snarled at her, at itself, as the claw refused to move from its high reel. Instead it latched down on the head, forcing it down in internal pain. The burn from the eyes broke, they closed shut from the now clear internal struggle. They flashed open, red glare dimming down as the head shot up to display a now held off rage. But now the field held more than just the two of them.

Behind Aegis a steadily growing line up of heroes, both new and old, began to form. Mediknight was knelt down with Para on his shoulder. Kabar and most his trainers formed and flared up behind Aegis, Ohm and his dad came in from the left, Marco and Master Da Feng the right, and several other trainers and heroes hopped down the rubble and leveled every manner of weapon or attack. All of them bore the same fiery hate, for what ‘Seth’ had done. But the Seth that now glared at them through a burning red eye was caught unable to shatter their hatred, unable to meet it with greater force. The right claw was joined by the left, the eyes shut tight in anguish. It raised his head up, forced the hands away and roared at the gathered heroes, at its impeded vengeance, at everything. That red eye burning in defiance to itself. The claws finally closed in as something struggled for control, grappling around the maw with clear subconscious intent. They wrapped around it as it tried to roar one final time, but it was slammed shut and forced low. The burn snuffed out in the same instant, both eyes hallowed to darkened holes on a burned out suit. A tense moment killed fiery glares as the claws fell to their sides, as Seth rose up straight, whatever struggle gone and won. There wasn’t any feeling, any emotion. There was just a towering suit mimicking a long dead terror.

He stood still for a long drawn moment, eating away at all those heroes’ hate, before the shrill shriek of forced movement egged it back up. He turned away from the barrier, away from all that demanded retribution. Away from Aegis. What little part of Seth that was now in control was done fighting and still held on to the promises he held himself to. The light of the barrier was too dim to keep him illuminated as he trudged into the darkness of that light burned battlefield. The only sound the even scrap and thud of his taloned steps. The heroes stayed put in their positions. Either to continue the bluff that they were a match, to hide their haphazardly staunched wounds from the foyer. Or they understood that there were more important things right now than continuing this fight. Namely dealing with the grievously wounded… and the dead.

Aegis’ fire had waned in the face of Seth’s struggling, in the flash of unearthly malice that the red eye gave off at her, and in the hollow stare that she’d looked into for an answer to all this. But all she could do was keep her post until he was far and away from the field, and her shaken resolve could be added to the casualty list. She fell to her knees when she was sure, releasing the barrier and breaking the façade that she held up. The wounded bulwark took a barely thankful breath, pulled around Aegis as she stifled her tears. She couldn’t bring herself to lay blame and turn sadness to directed anger like them. She knew too much, felt she had done too little to stop this. She could only hope it would end before more lives were lost, or before greater suffering was caused. All she felt she could do was hope.