Breezes bombard the island below the dark gray clouds, rustling blades of grass in powerful gusts as bulks of blades formally facing upwards like stakes are bent forwards by the overwhelming winds as the whoosh flies by them.

Before the breeze can pass, the sole of a black boot crushes the bulk of grass blades in a slow step. Above the boot, the wearer is dressed in a fiber-woven suit that fits slimy to the body, the material colored black. Resting against the right thigh of the being is a black small firearm construct resembling a pistol with its stubby barrel and sleek profile. The weapon is connected to the hand of the gunslinger, and the sleeve too is adorned in black fabrics as seemingly is the whole body.

Over the shoulder of the gunslinger is another man who stands in front of the closed silver door of the stronghold out in the open field, the valley surrounded by the mountainous trees, the one leveled spot in the center of the remote island.

Across from him, that man in front of the stronghold also wears black, although the material is more in line with spandex, and the suit also has the design of orange branches which drape down his arms and body. The suit covers most of the body with the exception of the head, as even the complementary hood lays down, revealing the face of the man to be rugged with a black beard and a scar along his left cheek. His arms remain by the side as he behaves calmly, his blue eyes peering through the breeze in silence.

Staring back at the gunslinger, the leader of Generation S gazes at the black face-shaped mask that conceals the identity of his opponent, who silently peers back in front of the dense trees behind a long bush. He watches however as the man in the black suit reaches his left arm to the ear of his mask and taps it, which causes the mask to dematerialize, his disguise vaporized to reveal his true face and free his unkempt brown hair.

Staring back, he also has a similar scar on his right cheek, and a similar toughened facial structure. He stares back with gray eyes, unafraid to reveal himself regardless of the potential ramifications, for it was a cause he truly did believe in.

Neither speak, only stare, as the leader of Generation S keeps his right arm by his side, with no telling what the supernatural abilities of the leader of supernaturally empowered fighters would wield, as it can best be interpreted that he’d likely be the strongest of them all.

It seems he’s aware, as he doesn't give a hint to it, avoiding any revving or drawing to keep his abilities ominous until the last second so his opponent wouldn’t have the luxury of planning a counter.

Instead, the leader stares calculatedly through his blue irises, his pupils calm, his lips parted to let him breathe steadily through, a common habit of Exhumans as remaining in peak condition nearly always translates to stronger use of their abilities.

Facing back, the leader of the Watchdogs glares composedly through his gray irises, his pupils calm, discreetly breathing through his nose, the intake nearly silent.

Blue eyes staring.

Gray eyes staring.

Blue.

Gray.

Swiftly, the pistol is raised up at the leader of Generation S right as the opposing leader aims his arm up, prepared to reveal his secret ability.

Emerging through the bush in the back, the man in the black leather jacket glides forth into the open area, his azureus lenses blazing as his right hand is connected to a curved blue cable, and on the other end it connects to the green mask of a Watchdog volunteer, whose body flies limply behind without a soul to pilot it.

Landing on his feet, the man in the mask enters the field, and behind him the limp body falls on the ground face first. The cable then retracts back into the hand that it was projected from, which then rests by the man’s side.

The rustle of the leaves alone shatters the tension as both leaders throw their gaze at the intruder before the Watchdog leader turns his head, albeit keeping the barrel of his arm locked on the heart of his opponent.

Both leaders watch in silence as the third contestant approaches them in silence, his footsteps heavy yet silent, carrying the presence of the devil yet too a hallucination. He walks past the Watchdog leader, facing forward until he stops right dead between the two.

Swiveling his head, the man in the mask turns to face the two leaders before pivoting his whole body. He then stands in place, silent, his azureus eyes glaring at both.

The leader of Generation S stands in place, his arm raised. The leader of the Watchdogs stands in place, his barrel raised. The body of the failed messenger lays on the ground, his body still. The mythic tempest stands in place, his arms by his side.

Without warning, the Tempest has shown up to the final duel between rivaling organizations, and had caught both leaders in a state of vulnerability, as they had their arms facing each other about ninety degrees from the potential target when all the Tempest had to do was flick his wrists. He had already beaten both of them by simply standing.

In fact, neither of them had noticed until the leader of Generation S peeks that the Tempest’s hands were already prepared to fire, his two fingers and thumb extended and others curled. The shock of his entrance alone had put the two leaders in a perilous spot, just as planned from the beginning, which the Tempest couldn’t help might’ve not happened if not for a slight stroke of luck.

However, while shooting the two leaders would be an easy task, that was not the goal.

“You’re free to lower your arm now Vincent, you can only carry that bluff so far,” directs the Tempest, to which he then moves his glare onto the leader of Generation S, who stares back at him with a stunned expression.

Maintaining his aim, the Watchdog leader interrogates, “Bluff? What bluff?”

“The one that he genuinely has Exhuman abilities,” the Tempest coldly elaborates.

The Watchdog leader glances at the Tempest, then at the leader of Generation S, Vincent. He then glances at both of them again before joyously disparagingly, “Wait, you’re telling me the leader of the Exhuman group doesn’t even have powers? Huh, so if it were just another second, I’d have shot you dead and you wouldn’t have been able to do a thing.”

“Perhaps it is true that he would not have retaliated, but you likely would not have only pulled the trigger to make the shot land, Walker” declares the Tempest with the same cold voice.

His arm lowering after hearing the direct remark, the Watchdog leader, Walker, directs all his attention to the Tempest before scornfully imploring, “What are you trying to say about me? Think I can’t hit a still target?”

“You never have, you never managed to land your shots in all your training. You couldn’t shoot me even if I stood right in front of you, but I’m not insulting you, that would be cruel given it’s due to a defect you’ve had since birth. But I’m sure you wouldn’t need to fire from such a distance when you could easily employ your Exhuman abilities which specialize in letting you get a point blank shot. That was your plan, and if it weren’t for another second, you were going to use your abilities to restrain him,” reveals the Tempest in a callous tone, his head tilting to face Walker with a cold glare.

Staggering back in overwhelming dread, Walker blinks twice and shakes his head, his breathing heavy and sporadic before he exhorts, “Wai-Wait, how do you know all this?”

A soft shake of the head and the Tempest imparts, “I’ve spent my years of this war wisely, although I can’t say the same about either of you. You’re in luck that Kobe over there isn’t conscious enough to hear that his leader and enemy are both frauds. So no need to fear, we all know now, you have no reason to hide. And as you declared, by the end of today, the war will be over, which is true seeing how neither of you have any more strongholds to fall back onto, I made sure of that.”

Both Walker and Vincent pivot their bodies to the Tempest before Vincent exclaims, “Wait, it was you? I heard the news about the sightings and even disappearances, but never have I been under the impression that you’d be conducting sieges.”

Following up, Walker shouts, “What was that all for? Do you know how much I lost from that one night? The facilities themselves aren’t expensive but all the equipment took years to accumulate the wealth for! And you just took it away all like that? I know that mask probably doesn’t mean much to you, but the last person I remember wearing it used to actually defend us from monsters like him,” Walker points at Vincent without hesitation, “instead of the sabotage you’re conducting!”

Falling into a feud, Vincent points back at Walker before quarreling, “You say that like all he did was fight my people for you! Such a senseless claim only is appropriate from such a senseless relic, believing the universe revolves around you, believing that the top of the chain is where you deserve to stay when you’ve clearly become obsolete! Meditat was more than that, he helped make the oppressive dictators you wish you could be stop putting my brothers down! He was fighting against the regime, not for it!”

“It’s almost impressive how you both perpetuate these thoughts as if you are the other, forgetting who you truly are. I dismantled your strongholds the same reason I’ve come here today, because I’m putting an end to this war. And now that both of you are exposed as the frauds you are, no amount of self-told lies will spare you from knowing that the truth has been outed and your opponent is more alike the people you claim to lead than you are yourself,” the Tempest interrupts the argument before it can burn any longer, placing his motives on the table for all to see.

A tsk comes from Walker as he acknowledges that such a scar would never come off, to which he lowers his arm and turns away in shame. He grumbles before admitting, “It’s a guilt I’ve carried my whole life, being one of ‘them.’ And I realize no matter how much I reinstate the Watchdogs or any similar legion, as long as either of you are out there, I’ll never have the same integrity a leader requires.”

“Then it’s good that I’ve had this contingency in place,” mentions Vincent, turning the heads of both Walker and the Tempest.

Behind the bushes, out of both leaders’ sight, Ekitai, Dana, and Kokei listen in beside a pile of other defeated Watchdogs who had also tried to reach the stronghold. Dana peers closer in perplexion to the point brought up, her green eyes staring through the thick leaves.

With the raise of Vincent’s hand, the large stronghold door behind him vaporizes into a nanite cloud which followingly disperses. Behind the door is a majorly open hangar bay, deprived of any vehicles. What is in the otherwise empty room however is the cone-shaped object in the center of the room, an enormous warhead that emits a green dot of light.

Both Kokei and Ekitai peer closer through the bushes in shock, unable to believe their eyes as to what they’re seeing.

As Walker and the Tempest stare in disbelief too, Vincent unveils, “I had the understanding that by the end of today, either me or the leader of the Watchdogs would be terminated. However, even if it were me who was brought down, I would become a martyr for another group to rise and take my place to continue the fight. I never intended to be the one true head of the revolt against humanity, I am as you exposed nothing more than a relic too, so if anything it would be best that sooner or later someone else picked up the mantle. But, if somehow the truth got out, perhaps if I were to make a mistake and reveal my true self, I could ensure that no one would survive to leak the information that the man who led the Exhumans for years wasn’t one of them to begin with. If that were to happen, the spirits of the movement would falter to an unprecedented scale next to the fall of Meditat, so I made the plan to hold the confrontation here in case I needed to…rid any undesired evidence. But now that both of you know, and you here,” Vincent glares at the Tempest specifically, “have known, it would be best to just take the chance now. I’m not killing both of you with my own hands anyways, clearly.”

Stepping forward, the Tempest exclaims in an aghast voice, “That’s suicide, if I’m not surviving that blast then neither are you!”

Vincent shrugs his shoulders and blatantly admits, “Then I won’t,” before turning around to face the warhead. He then begins making a sequence of gestures with his hand towards the warhead, parsing in the activation code.

Without a second thought, the Tempest launches himself at Vincent, aiming his hand right at Vincent’s head to put him down. He flicks his wrist, and fires the shot.

Taking the hit, an arm emerges from the ground, the hand gripping the Tempest’s finger and absorbing the shot. However, without it being connected to any body, the hand takes no damage from the bolt.

Before the Tempest can make another move, more hands extend out from the ground, grabbing the Tempest’s ankles to pull him back down. After grounding him, several hands root from the ground and grab his other hand as well as his wrists and arm, restraining him swiftly as Vincent remains untouched, however shocked by the save.

Both Vincent and the Tempest turn towards the one other man in the field, to which they find him with one knee on the ground, his hands on the grass as they emit a red supernatural glow. He stares up at the Tempest, revealing himself to be the one holding him back.

Attempting to push forward against the restraints, the Tempest reasons, “Walker, your hands will not protect you from the blast. You are not safe either, if that warhead goes off that will be the end of you as well!”

Walker nods his head and accepts “I know, but that’s what has to happen. From the beginning it was wrong for a devil to lead the people, and now that you know that fact, I must warrant that you won’t leave here alive. None of us will. If I have to perish for my sins so the humans can continue their march to freedom from Hell’s army, then I won’t resist.”

More hands grab at the Tempest, chaining him to his knees as he stares at Vincent, who continues the gestures, for the sequence appears lengthy to remain secure. The Tempest then turns to Walker and sighs before conceding “It’s senseless, but somehow both of you are surprisingly noble people. It’s just a shame that this is how you apply yourselves.”

He then turns towards the forest and nods his head to the bushes.

Walker moves his gaze to the bushes in perplexion to the glance, and he notices a green flash of light. Walker’s eyes grow wide in shock before then contracting to focus. An arm beside him emerges from the ground, stretching longer than any arm should, as rather than it being limited to one upper arm and forearm, the total arm consists of a longer sequence of them, allowing the arm itself to extend up five feet.

Right on time, a radiant green bolt strikes the palm of the open hand, which leaves a glowing green liquid which speedily dissolves the hand and wrist, taking the hit to protect Vincent who was in the trajectory of the shot.

A swarm of arms extend from the ground and reach for the bushes at once, to which both the Vanguard and Artificer leap out, narrowly avoiding the hands. The Vanguard charges at Vincent, throwing her arm up as arcs of pink energy release from her body towards the one target. However, that target changes as several arms pop out of the ground and get struck themselves, causing the arms to spark for a moment but with no further reaction.

Before she can make a second move, hands crawl out of the ground and pull her legs down before coiling around her arm and entire body, covering her from being able to fire again. She whines in immense discomfort as all the hands wrap around her in a disturbing pile desperately trying to contain her.

Last one free, the Artificer aims her hands, which are morphed into cone barrels while she moves six more tentacles in front of her which all have barrels that aim at Vincent, and she unloads a heavy barrage his way.

Between her and the target, a surge of hands burst out of the ground in several rows, with every farther row being taller similar to the positioning of bleachers. The multiple dozens of hands swiftly form a shield, which absorbs all the shots.

Still focused on firing, the Artificer is caught by more hands which crawl onto her tentacles and arms before dragging her onto the ground, causing her to fall on her back. More arms then grab her limbs, further restraining her.

As the wall of hands is pulled back into the ground, the flock of arms that were sent into the bushes pulls back, revealing themselves having caught the Alchemist’s limbs. A hand tightly grips his wrist, causing him to drop his handgun as he’s pulled closer with the other three who failed to take out one target. He’s placed on his knees and held down beside his allies.

One finger points up from Vincent, and with that, the green light becomes yellow to signal detonation by timer, and a simple holographic projection displays from the warhead, providing the display of the timer which begins at: “00:01:00.” The very next second, the displayed time becomes, “00:00:59.”

Now the doomsday clock is set, Vincent turns around and calmly approaches Walker, nodding his head and verifying, “It’s set. Thanks for getting my back.”

Walker nods his head back, remarking casually “Funny seeing Generation S using warheads, that’s usually our thing. But I guess that’s how it’ll be.”

The timer ticks down to “00:00:41.”

In a last ditch effort, the Tempest uses all the strength he has to push himself to his feet, and charge at the warhead as he struggles to extend his hand forward, knowing that if he can just aim at the warhead, he could deactivate the timer by rupturing the electronics controlling the timer. His arm manages to rotate to his side, and now he just needs to bring it out in front.

Walker takes notice of the attempted action, summoning more hands from below the surface, with five hands grabbing each of the Tempest’s arms and pulling them backwards.

Persistent to stop the timer, the Tempest’s chest flashes blue, ready to use his entire body if necessary. However just as before, arms protrude from the ground and grab onto his chest. Now realizing that the Tempest was able to fire omnidirectionally, Walker summons even more hands to cover his whole body as well, closing any opening that could be used as a barrel.

00:00:27.

With all his energy, the Tempest tries to march forward, managing to take one half step and dragging his other foot behind. His entire body is engulfed in hands dragging him down into the underworld, but he perseveres with every step while Dana watches in fear.

With every movement, more arms surface, some even grabbing onto each other for greater strength, trying to weigh the Tempest down. Numerous hands now cling onto the man, his steps becoming slower as his eyes remain on the timer.

00:00:23.

As Ekitai lays on his knees, his limbs tightly gripped by the many hands, he also attempts to budge, but to not even a semblance of success. He yanks his arms but without a single inch of movement, still trying his best until suddenly hearing a loud constant scream from ahead of him, one put through a distorted module. He immediately loses focus on escape, turning it instead to the source of the scream in front of him as his expression morphs into one of perplexity.

In front of the three allies stands the Tempest, no longer moving, as even while trying to push off the ground the sheer mass of arms prevents him from moving an inch. However, instead he has begun screaming, at first a moderate scream but slowly getting louder as though putting more into it, resonating more intensely in the field.

He screams without end, still trying to push his body forwards. He screams without end as azureus flames blaze from his lenses, rising up into the atmosphere with deliberate presence.

00:00:13.

Held down to the ground by the pile of hands, Kokei kneels with despair in her face as she stares at the Tempest, watching him seem to lose all sanity in the final moments of his time, desperately seeking some solution although it’s clear to her as well as all others that there’s none left, a fact he’s seemed to accept for himself deep down.

However, as the Tempest continues to scream at the top of his lungs and then beyond, Kokei’s pupils shrink in revelation and her jaw drops open from a thought that stops her heart. Tears well in her pink eyes as she endures the blood curdling screams, noticing something she wasn’t even sure he did.

Pushing forward, the Tempest howls and screams, his voice so loud that the modulator no longer manages to properly augment it, his screams so intense that they pass through the mask naturally, as in that moment it wasn’t the Tempest screaming, it was someone else. Not even Rohan.

Rumbling the entire forest, the Tempest rages and screams as Vincent drops his knees to the ground, accepting the end he ignited, prepared for what laid ahead. A siren blaring in the forest, Walker lowers his head as he tolerates the hopeless wails, knowing that his fate is sealed thus any action now has become meaningless. Nothing matters now, not when they’ll all be set ablaze in the matter of seconds.

00:00:03.

Screaming out of his mind, the Tempest’s veins visible from his neck begin radiating azureus blue as though his own body was being overwhelmed by himself.

00:00:02.

Screaming out through his soul, blue flames begin seeping out through the apertures in the hands restraining the Tempest’s own hands, raging with his voice.

00:00:01.

Walker, remaining knelt on the ground by his own accord, shuts his eyes gently, ready.

Vincent, on his knees by his fellow opponent, closes his eyes softly, embracing his sacrifice, the necessary demise.

Dana, laying on the ground restrained by the hands and still masked, lowers her head to avoid eye contact with the warhead, unable to bear the sight of what will bring her to a sudden end when she feels she just struck a perfect chord in her life.

Ekitai, kneeling on the grass, his limbs held down, stares at the warhead with bright wide yellow eyes, staring death in the eyes as he did many times, unsure if he was prepared for his long days of adventuring to come to an end.

Kokei, kneeling under the pile of hands, her whole body covered with the exception of her head, gazes at the Tempest with vibrant wide pink eyes, staring at the blue flames that reflect from her irises, speechless in the revelation that sparked right as her time was up.

Him, screaming through every wall in his soul, his eyes and arms blazing furiously with blue flames. He screams into the void that he’s been drowning in for so long, screaming with all the will he has, all the strength he has, everything he has, just needing one echo back.

Through the hollow void, his body flashes blue before erupting in a massive discharge of azureus flames that immediately devour all three of his allies as well as both leaders and the body of the Watchdog he carried. The fire races up into the air, covering the area in front of the stronghold in a blazing dome.

00:00:00.

All in the very next moment, the warhead’s shell is incinerated, and the blinding light where it stood consumes the field as the inner silver walls of the hangar melt. A blinding light fills the hangar and outside forest, consuming the hangar as the entire hangar portion of the stronghold melts.

Following is the firestorm released from the center of the hangar, which consumes the whole hangar in an instant, following through the far hall across the entrance while chunks are ripped off of the stronghold walls and fly out before burning.

The firestorm releases into the forest, passing the dome right after it morphs black, and swallows the field up.

The following boom trembles the earth as a powerful shockwave follows the blaze, shoving the trees outward as leaves rustle violently and detach

From the long field where bodies both green and black are piled, the massive burst of flames rises far above the trees, and the subsequent shockwave thrashes bodies backwards as more trees rustle and wave.

Along the bloody shore walled with black pods and filled with more bodies and giant spikes, a small light flashes in the center of the forest, followed by an audible thunderous boom that echoes in the sky.