His simulated body flared, blinding out everything around him. The city, the Garkah, the cell this whole civilization lived on. His focus shot away, the roiling storm he just pulled into himself melting away. The light dying down and leaving him back in darkness. But not that same emptiness. 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 bits and pieces of a world he’d never known. Pulling the helmet off his head, it wasn’t as heavy as before. In fact it felt like it weighed next to nothing. 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 and rendered moot. He couldn’t hear the whisper any more, not even as he tried, 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 the 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 that pain.

‘Uggrrh… Can you keep it down? My head is kil-’

Those voices. He’d heard them so many times before but it was like they were never this detailed. The control room the Garkah set up to support him. The scientists and analysts that operated it. The booting clack of their constructs and the soft tap of their inputs. And…

‘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.

“There you go taking to power too damn fast again. At least this time you're in control. It’s already sharpened your senses a few extra notches.”

Seth looked back down at himself, flexed his hands, the power he usually focused about was coursing through every inch like he was made of it. 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 against 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 he was having, they were his. It was like he was there, not just told of what occurred, but actually feeling every emotion Threat did during… during his rampage. The abyss had been carrying these memories, and now Seth was too. The rage against a society that wanted nothing to do with him, the hate at the lengths they took to kill him, all of that built up power from… killing the Garkah he fought. It was hellish, the death and destruction both in his wake… and ahead of him.

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 power flare with every tensing muscle and rushing vain. He let go, all that hate and rage was pointless, not his and not to be relived. The tension melted, he let his mind go 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. 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.

“Don’t worry!! I’ll make sure to keep the food warm for you this time!!”

Energy welled up under that ire and gyre, pooling in every juncture as his body tensed in anger, an errant discharge carrying over the suit and flaring the eyes. Seth had enough problems all his own to deal with, he didn’t need to take on anyone else’s. He could feel all his new power though, the ebb and flow of it with the beat of his heart. Like there was a rhythm to his being. But still he knew he didn’t need it right now. He let it recede, let this more personal anger go despite its ever presence, but felt a separate pull upon it as it left. One he almost instinctively expected.

It was 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, no one eying him from there. A slight bit more focus to his senses and the periphery teemed with heroes and trainees going to lunch. Nervous systems lighting them up for him to track through the walls. Seth refocused, back to the control booth. The main terminal, 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 pulses in set frequencies to pass along the binary. The physical lock was tied to a specific code 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 metal chains, the electric motors. The door was pushed up, the chain pulled harder, and the motor sped up a few more notches, nothing destructive at any rate. Just stepping it up a bit. Though he backed off a little, aware of his own overbearance

‘Okay, maybe I’m overdoing it just 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 like a whirlpool in the sea. He put a hand to it, hesitating slightly as he remembered, as he saw Threat’s memories flash in his head. But Speaker moved to sooth that hesitation.

“Its systems are long dead, drained dry and smelted by that coming 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 edges of that gravity well pulling him in abate as his focus 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. Seth 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 even hope to see, leaving the plain of his power’s possibilities. But all of it hummed despite the life sentence of their incarceration, 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. Flowing 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 just 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 time and cause more damage than it was worth. 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, one of freedom. But 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 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 of.’

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 against the Ark’s bulk.

‘It will never again threaten this world, so long as I control it!’

It quaked, rose, titanic forces of weight and might clashing as the Ark was 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. Feeling for its worble, its shift, learning its entirety little by little. The going was easy, the Ark was just a cumbersome hold. A lot of surface to contend with and only two hands.

‘But let’s see if we can kick things up a little.’

He increased his pace, keeping an even and level gait, but speeding up gradually. Before long he was briskly traversing the arena’s 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, eyes fell upon 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, and digging ruts deep into the sand. 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 had 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. Metal clanging the floor buried below. His momentum didn’t stop though. The excessive counterweight of the Ark used to 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, the emitters embedded into the walls, the outlets doted about, the junctions split between. 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 buried into the streets below, the ancillary systems across the city, the things no one would miss if they were off for a few seconds. The plaza’s street lights, its shops, their air conditioning. He took hold of the little things, the wires in between, the gaps that power could flow freely through. 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 that plasma blue of true power usage, as it straightened up from its slump and walked on its own. A repository, a capacitor to hold all that power. As he found the right tune.

It stomped up to the ruts Seth had dug with his heels and began mimicking his stance like before. But this time was different. He finished taking in some energy for himself, enough to match but not to blind, and shifted to a stance to meet an oncoming attack. But the suit didn’t mimic, instead it stanced up to be that attack. The sand burst, 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, and as the air kicked beyond the bounds of caliber. The suit flipping and landing back in those 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, 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. The windows of the control booth shook from each impact and the sheer overpressure 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, Seth shifted, jumping airborne and straight kicking it back toward the suit, the hit nearly reverberating the whole damn Hill. The suit, though, shot forward. Arms slamming together low, intent to serve the Ark up. Landing and locking back down, Seth shot after the Ark. Sand blasting back and momentum already too far gone. At the halfway point, the suit locked down, straddled the indent that the Ark had made. With one final flare it spiked the Ark up, a monumental hit to throw it into the sky. Its wake kicked up a wave of sand that followed it up through the open roof of the arena. The suit followed through its upward double slam by stretching out and lotusing itself opening. An invitation, and the realization of all that stored up power. He pivoted as he neared, matching the suit's stretch and slamming home into the gel lined bosom of his suit, plates and panels closing with heavy clangs.

The suit ached and sizzled, copper lines and conductive plates strained by the excess energy roaring through it.

‘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, a vibration too strong to contain. 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. As that waveform peaked its finality.

‘NOW!!’

The sand around him repulsed in fear, that same peaking form, before he released his jump, and the massive force locked inti it. The sand exploded away and another cacophonous boom shook the arena in his wake. He aimed upward. The Ark was already back through the arena roof as all these titanic forces came together at last, and Seth threw his punch.

Perception slowed the world as the Ark seemed stopped in midair on his fist. Equal forces meeting and canceling. Senses overdriven to make this all count. Shockwaves propagating up from the leap that came before impact the only visible result. Contact seemed to come with almost disappointing softness, but then that waveform found its home, and the cracks formed. A uniform wave of illuminated cracks blindingly flashing up the Ark’s surface. The illumination spreading without care for perception. Freed electrons released from their eternal bindings, shooting away and ionizing the air in all directions. A neon aurora flashed 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. Radiating out and thinning with distance, unlucky pieces piled up 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 smashed it for all the saved extinguisher foam it held back. It screamed as it fizzled away on contact.

“Shit! SHIT!!”

Seth quickly pulled at the energy in the suit, forcing it into his control, into just one single hand. He slammed it down and released all of it into the arena floor, to ground, to dissipation. The last of the sand around rippling away as the main door to the arena opened. 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 definitely overdid it. He slumped as his suit weighed his over exerted 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 could walk out of here.

“Well… its not like it was just power.”

Aegis and Mediknight’s expressions stayed overwhelmed, but grew more puzzled. He knew he had to explain a few things.

“The A- sphere, it was never going to break from power alone.”

Seth realized he had to explain way more than that. He REALLY overdid 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 went flat slightly, but relented. 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 trusted 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 BACK!!”

‘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, hucking the damn whole thing out over the knife field and 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 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 now double shocked faces. 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 closed, Mediknight stayed calm as always, and Aegis-

“PHEWW that-”

Both Seth and Mediknight gave her simultaneous 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 turned 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 a tray as well 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 of the soft steamed pasta 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 and hope for the best.

“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 your Berta scenario?”

Seth shuttered slightly, but his scar did not return as he shook away the memories. A releasing sigh attempting to push the already dealt with past.

“I need the suit to contain my powers, to keep myself from hurting people inadvertently. And admittedly… things have been progressing a little… too well. Techno told me that the sphere was a mass of uber conductive metal and that basically what my suit is made of so… I may have needed to… borrow a bit as well.”

Mediknight leaned in.

“How did you know how to break it?”

Seth straightened 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. Like its… more than just electricity. 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. Well I can focus it all over my body. I don’t really do anything as crude as project it, but I… I can feel it… like its threading 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 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, but poked her fork at him to get her point across. “*gup* 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 in case things went south, not justification to kick him out.

“Y-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 you owe. 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. Especially from someone who they’ve already written off. 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* Sometimes 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 had been 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 in simultaneous worry.

“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 as Aegis chuckled off the tension. He had his allies, had friends in this world. And hopefully they stayed that way. He finished his lunch and walked back out while Aegis and Mediknight returned to their duties. His suit was left 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.