“PARAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

Erdwut bellowed up at the podium like few had ever heard before.

“You said he didn’t have powers!!”

Para was looked down, smug satisfaction burned away by spite riddled contortions. He'd watched history repeat itself, he'd watched Seth tear through another group of supers like they had been nothing. He couldn’t accept it.

“He Doesn’t!! Have!! Powers!!! It’s all that damn suit!!!”

Erdwut spread out his arm at the scrap metal display around him and the slowly re-congregating Elite, stoicism perturbing away.

“WHAT SUIT!!! There’s Nothing Left!!”

Technomancer shakily stood up and pressed a few buttons on his suit gauntlet, a skittering sound from the stands signaled a new set of support arms were on their way. He bent down to the floor as they approached, letting them rip the broken pack off his back and allowing himself to pick up a piece of the suit off the ground. He groaned back up, new pack whirring into place, and presented the piece forcefully toward the podium.

“Para!! I scanned this thing from top to bottom!! There’s no power source among this junk!!”

The rather pleasant feeling of Mediknight’s healing aura washed over the arena and indiscriminately dissipated what damage had been done. Hothead and Ziyou both sorely walked back into the group from their respective landing points, Hothead angrily gripping his more than bruised side and grumbling at getting thrown through a load bearing wall.

“I don’t give a crap what his suit’s got!! This damn kid is Not this powerful on his own!!!”

Ziyou held her arm in dimming pain and popped it back where it belonged, shrugging half heartedly but rather loudly as she crossed in front of Hothead. And Para’s frustration at this back and forth only grew louder.

“He can’t have powers!! No one wears a suit like that just for FUN!! And a few heavy sucker punches doesn’t make him super!!”

Aegis was watching on from her spot on the edge of the ring, an ultra light chuckle cutting through her concern at what just happened. She hadn’t told them everything apparently and preferred to let them flounder as the truth finally set in. A nice little bit of petty justice. Though her guilt still kept her head down… as a piece of suit floated up from the ground in front of her.

“...Uhm... guys.”

Techno reasserted himself to Para.

“Listen!! This suit had no power driving it!! That means he’d been moving it all on his own!! There’s several hundred pounds of scrap here damn it!!”

Para shot back at him.

“Just because he’s strong doesn’t mean he’s a super!!”

More pieces of suit began floating around the heroes, all of them looking up at Para’s tunnel visioned glare at Techno and Erdwut and his refusal to accept the facts he just saw. Aegis was now joined by an almost shocked Samurai observing the rising metal field.

“Uhm… Guys!”

Techno pulled up his data pad with his scanning readings on it.

“Para!! The moves he’s been recorded doing don’t line up with just super strength!! This suit has adapters, capacitors, layers that don’t work without a massive amount of external power put into them!! And the ONLY source of power that could come from is-”

“GUYS!!!”

The heroes finally snapped out of their argument and all turned to Aegis, finally seeing the floating pieces of metal around them. And finally realizing now, as they followed those shattered pieces out and away from the ring… that Seth was lurching back up again ready for round two.

A glare that could melt steel and that ever present and verbose expression were the only things the heroes received as they stared back through Seth’s growing metal constellation. A buzz in the air slowly rising as he reared up, arms pulling in at his sides. The world a shade brighter, the power crossing through it seen for all it was and pulled like it was too close to a blackhole. The hardlight array behind flickering a buried strobe, wispy ionization lighting the air around him in a dim neon fire. Floating pieces starting to slowly pull toward him like magnets finding their opposites. Techno fumbled with his piece and held tight to it, feeling the drag against him. His support arms began to flail stiffly with calculation as he flicked his visor down and reeled.

“He’s… trying to rebuild the suit!?!”

“Not a GOD!! DAMN!! CHANCE!!!”

Maglev pulled ahead of everyone and extended his hands. A countervailing pull against the drag, true magnetic force arraying itself against. Erdwut showfully pulled his molten blade up, pointing with clear command and a final bellow for those already ringed out.

“STOP HIM!!!”

But all of it was too… ‘fucking… LATE!!!

The air flashed to plasma crescendo as Seth reared and took back what was his. The constellation shot away, streaking electric wake and wanton prejudice, yanking Techno off his feet and pulling Maglev with them . The first pieces impacted like the starting pieces of a puzzle, slamming into place on Seth’s body without care for recoil or collateral damage. A half a gauntlet here, a shin guard sliver, a third of a rotator cuff, the ribs from the skeletal frame, the helmet’s lower half. Maglev righted himself in time to join Hothead and Ziyou as they charged toward him, pieces flowing past them at violent velocities. Hothead reached out and grabbed a large chunk, most of the right gauntlet, and fought the force reeling it in.

‘NOT ENOUGH!!!’

Seth suddenly lurched down into his pull with all the grace of loosed beast, sand at his feet blasted to baking in the wake as he burst in counter. He pulled up his left as its main plate slotted in, just as Maglev loosed a metal bar at him. It sparked and screeched as it glanced off and launched away. His left foot sprang him up and spun him over as Ziyou came in with a low. A sweeping strike failed to catch his other leg as it left the ground, momentum carrying her about to prepare for a counter. The right boot reformed around his foot as it came around as expected. Ziyou brought up her guard up tight, but weight and power denied her preparation. Her arms buckled again as the plated boot struck her in the face, spinning her back around violently. That right slammed down and halted his spin, locked down again, and launched him back on his malicious course.

Maglev was coming in, swinging one of his metal bars down with rebuked fury. The rest of the left gauntlet formed around Seth’s hand as it extended and caught it mid strike. Momentum carrying through, loading up as his arm kept that bar held tight but his body passed it by. Only waiting to slam it forward, out of Maglev’s hands and into his face. A bloody nose and lost footing knocking him on his ass. The metal bar was whipped away as Seth lurched down to lock and shot off again, dragging his right out to punch Hothead as he struggled against the right gauntlet. It suddenly pulled up oddly, realigned, and what was left of the fingers curled up into a fist right in his face. Seth loosed his punch right into the waiting gauntlet, slipping in, slamming shut, and bashing Hot in the chest. He was ricocheted away, was sent tumbling past Aegis still locked in her spot but watching with a tinge of pride in her guilt ridden concern. Seth planted his right again and launched back into the ring.

Techno stayed ducked away to preserve his tech, and to get clear of Erdwut as he came up to bat. Seth leapt off his left again, spinning over Eschenwald like a pole-vaulter as it sought purchase against the empty space he left. More pieces welcomed to their respective places as he spiraled. The rest of the left boot, the back plating, the hip joints, the obliterated servos, the expansions and additives and everything he could grab. All of it flowing to him as he spun about, dragging his once again armored hands through the sand to scrape to a stop. The last of this once slag sheared suit slamming into place, forcing him back upright into the center of the ring. Each piece clanging into place like a metallic symphony coming to a close. All until the helmet top slammed down onto his head. The cacophony and struggle ceased as he was hit low, as he was dragged down by the weight of it all. But this was his weight to bear.

He opened his eyes, like they’d been shut for a time without him knowing, like he had blacked out without forgetting just what had driven all this so high. The weight of the suit labored his breathing, its soft pull at the power scathing off the excess, soothed that peaking waveform. Bringing him out of… whatever he had fallen into. He felt the Garkah again, heard them scramble to support, to diagnose the damage done to the suit and how to mitigate it. But Seth didn’t need them to fix it for him.

"We... we got you back!"

Threat was hollowed with worry, but tried to mitigate himself. This was no time for hesitation.

"Do what you have to do! Kick some ass!!"

Seth took that in stride. He felt the threads, the infinitesimal electron strings he’d pulled in over riding instinct to put this suit back together. They wound tight through every piece, across every crack and break, but it took all they had to hold the whole thing together. Seth needed the suit whole again to fight at full power. So he needed more power.

The discombobulated heroes regrouped on the other side of his emptied eye slits, view screen not saved and glass left long shattered away. Ziyou and Maglev nursing their heads under Mediknight’s healing field. Hothead hacking for air and holding his chest, rushing forward once he could hold a breath, trying to catch him out. But he was stopped as Eschenwald was put in his face. Erdwut staring him down to stop him from making a fool of himself yet again.

“We can’t blindly engage him anymore. We need to understand just what he’s capable of.”

Hothead sneered, but understood. Instead he redirected his ire at Seth, snorting at the situation.

“Like he could do much with a broken suit like-” *ZAP*

His arrogant redirection was interrupted by an electrical discharge… no… an inflow!

The floor of the arena glassed as a bolt of electricity shot up out of it, crashing over the suit like an inverted lightning rod. The heroes could do little but watch the light show. The power lines buried below the floor, more than able to bear this brunt but ripped apart all the same. Seth pulled right from the Hill’s grid, the wispy aurora of ionizing air turned to flashing bolts of plasma. Probably melting the metal floor a little on its way through, but who gives a fuck anymore! This was what he needed, and he was taking it. He focused it through, pooled all that power into those wrung out connections, flowed it around to flex his control, fattened up those infinitesimal threads until this power found its critical.

Suddenly the cracks on the boots of the suit sparked to life, a blue plasma burn dancing off… and up. That burn traveled up to the shin guards with a shower of over energetic shrapnel, and the cracks disappearing in its wake. Metal fused by a self-contained arc weld. What layers still below melding back together, servos and joints snapping into battery and locking to their points, what remaining gel left spread thin and disregarded. The burn continued on, the heat unabated and searing the flesh too close to avoid, fuse carrying on to the knee regardless. Seth hunched his head, lifted a foot… as it snapped apart. Fuse broken out as it split into metal talons before slamming and shattering the glassy sand below. As the other foot followed suite.

The burn fused thigh and hip, back and chest, every crack ceased to exist under the rising blue fire. The inside baked, heated metal and skeleton singeing chafe points, but it needed to keep going. The spine of the suit broke its welds, folded up and clanked down, extended down into a tail that pooled just above the shattered glass. The burn fused shoulder and hand as the clawed gauntlets were forced open. Finally the burn fused the helmet back together as Seth reeled away in reflex. The burn across his face forcing his eyes shut in fear, but not before he forced himself back down as two forward swept horns slashed out from the helmet's top edges.

The burn abated, sparked its last and silenced its crackling. Seth straightened up, the weight of this suit was his weight, indistinguishable from the body it covered. Nearly fused to his skin and reforged all the same. He looked up through the reforged eyes of the suit, at the heroes arrayed against him, as those eyes opened with that same plasma blue burn. And blared his ire for all to see that this fight had only just begun.

But despite, or possibly in spite, of that powered glare, it was clear that his suit had an effect. Both on the Elite… and most of the audience. A returned ire, just as hard and lacking that sympathy that bleed through before. He knew why, his suit’s mode was hardly an unknown quantity to him. But he also didn’t care. All that mattered right now was beating this challenge. And if that meant throwing everything he had at it then he would. Even if it cost him an easy future, he was not going to just let this burn inside him fizzle away again. He had lost too much already, it was time to gain something.

Though it was obvious things were going to get harder now, based solely on the hardened stares he was returned from across that blue glow. Ziyou’s enjoyment of this challenge seemed to have fallen away, tainted by the repeated knock downs and clear disgust. Maglev’s hand couldn’t stop shaking, but his expression read a more concerted hatred of him than before. Samurai shifted in from the other side of the ring, he understood this was a real fight now and not something he could sit out of, and a hint of his own inner hate seemed to drive away his guilt. He fell in on the right side, next to Maglev. Techno shifted in next to Erdwut, wearing a nervous expression at the display of power he just saw and barely a fraction of their ingrained attitudes. Aegis’s guilt still weighed her down, but she seemed to feel relieved almost. Maybe she didn’t like keeping so many secrets. Hothead glared at Seth like he’d just mirrored his own actions, a grand insult to crush everything held dear. He stared back with as great a death glare as Seth had given, just without the immediate justification behind it. And Erdwut… his stoic nature wavered. The air around him almost seemed to seeth and boil, his grip on Eschenwald tightening audibly. But that anger died away as soon as it came, melting to distaste and staying a low roil behind it all. He took a centering inhale and focused back on his team.

“Tech, fall back and bring up C.A.S.P.E.R. We need intel.”

“N-no complaints here.”

Techno took another leery glance at Seth and backed up out of the ring, setting up in front of the protected bench. He knelt down, the two lower support arms staked into the ground at his sides. Pulling up his data pad, he pulled down a support arm, socketing it on to a port on the side of it. The sensor suite on the arm cycled up as the pad connected to a system Seth had never seen in the Hill’s systems. The Central Automated Super Prediction Engine and Registry. He couldn’t even find any ports for it anywhere. Must have been air gapped, he had trouble with wireless systems like this if they weren’t at close range. The sensor suite lit up an augmented reality display for Techno to view the battlefield through. Each hero highlighted with their simplified and recorded stats… it even had relative health bars.

It scanned over Seth’s offensive carapace, high power lasers tracing and highlighting his silhouette, but in the end flashing up question marks for every value. He noticed it access the Hill’s records proper, as well as offsite databases he couldn’t reach. It brought up recordings of his training bouts, his sparring matches, even the looped footage he fed it when he broke the Ark. The icing on the cake though was there was something missing, his Berta scenario footage. The program flashed up a message saying the footage was deleted, with a handy prediction of who deleted it underneath. Ninety two percent Parasonic. Techno looked almost expectedly disappointed, in his creation and in his team.

“Erd… we have a problem! Incomplete data! Para deleted his midterm scenario footage… FOR SOME REASON!!”

Techno turned his head up to the podium, dead eyeing the stiff Para fighting just to keep his cool. Only moving just to stare down at Techno with the eyes of someone having a hell of a reckoning. Erdwut kept his eyes on Seth.

“What was the scenario?”

“Doesn’t say… just says he passed!”

“Para!?”

He kept his mouth shut, teeth gritted and defiant to the last.

“Heh… heha”

Erdwut finally took his eyes off his insult to look at Aegis as she giggled somberly.

“You want to tell us what happened.”

Aegis stared straight at Seth, the concern at last melting away from her face.

“That suit mode right there… he used it to beat Berta at 70%.”

Erdwut flinched, more at the scenario than the degree of difficulty. Hothead on the other broke completely.

“70!!! THAT FUCKER BEAT BERTA ON 70!!! Fuck You, Fuck That, and Fuck EVERYTHING about this!!!”

Erdwut turned back toward him, still stood waiting for something to happen. He looked like he found a new reason to fight, if not out of disgust for Seth’s choice in armor than to see for himself just what the hell he really was. He was resolved in his team’s next move.

“ELITE!!!”

All at once everyone stopped their reactions, their personal consternations, all falling in at their leader’s side.

“ROUNDEL FORMATION!!!”

It was finally time for a real fight. Erdwut and Samurai both moving before anyone could say otherwise, preplanned choreography sidestepping them around the ring. Erdwut took the left and Samurai the right. Swords rising in unison as they neared the center line. Both held high on their respective right and pointed straight at their target. Locking in like a steel cage around their target. The other members shifted in as their positions became secured. Maglev and Ziyou taking up positions on the opposite side of the ring, Maglev to the left of Erdwut, Ziyou to Samurai’s right. Hothead moved in between them, squared up with Seth’s back while Aegis shifted dead center in front of him. With a slow focused motion, she spread her hands out above her. A new orange energy ceiling formed, like this was going to get dangerous. Seth didn’t move from his spot, merely stole slight glances at the combatants as they passed out of his immediate sight. But he returned his gaze straight ahead at Aegis, a faceless helmet almost obviously bearing a rising smile of excitement and defiance. One shared yet masked in the expression opposite, Aegis’ tacit acceptance.

“Go all out.”

Tension, focus, palpable excitement, metal joints tensed with barely perceptible whirs, gripes tightened with stringent purpose. Seth's mind dropped to a knife edge, perception overclocking as power poured through everything he was, and the only thought brought down to a simple phrase of pure adrenaline.

‘Fucking bring it!’

And so it was brought.

Sand was blasted back in tandem sprays as this cage of steel was loosed to lariat. Both blades, renowned for disregarding even the toughest of armors hadn’t dealt with anything like this. Seth stayed solid, tracking the incoming attacks like they were oncoming glaciers, but with an even more noticeable slowness in the swordsmens’ moves. They weren’t going in to kill, just to scare and cause an imbalance that the rest of the heroes could exploit.

‘Wrong move!’

The right hand flashed up and Eschenwald halted, spattering molten earth in its wake as metal claws dug into it. The left hand rose and turned at the same time, a sword Seth really should know the proper name of found no purchase in a metallic palm. Both heroes were stopped dead in their feigned attacks, their almost insulting restraint dropping them right into range. And no matter whatever reflexes they had honed for this, perception was not on their side any more.

Right and left yanked away, upper body twisting hard, both swordsmen finding themselves pulled in with their blades. Right into grabbing range. Claws released and rose level, intended targets snatched before even the slightest grip could be second guessed. Heavy metal thunks signaling a head in each hand, footing robbed and their control taken away. As Seth pulled both together in front of him, and conked those underestimating heads together like newtonballs. Equal and opposite reaction throwing them aside.

But this was just the feint, the real attack was already locked in too far. Heat and flash, Hothead firing a flurry of blasts as he punched the air. Maglev stopping short, situation changed but still forcing his hands and powers extended. That same pull and press against the suit, against him. But it meant next to nothing. Seth dropped low and twisted around under the oncoming barrage, the weight alone preventing Maglev from influencing his movements. Fire sputtering out past his head as metal talons raked the sand and turned him to face his closer opponent.

Ziyou was already upon him, perceived cover and advantage lost as that blue glare rose to meet her. Undeterred, she launched into a flurry of her own, striking at weak spots, joints, anything. A right crossed over and struck at the right elbow, but it bashed solid metal. A left at his left shoulder, but it to failed. Her fists and fingers just banged against his armor with no points to pressure. Another right, hard at Seth’s shoulder joint. Finally making headway as it pulled back to avoid, but dashed that hope in the same instant as it dropped below her punch and slammed his own right forward. Metal fist met chest, sternum compressed and body sent to tumble away without any air left in it.

A new round of fire blasts, Hothead had moved up to shorten the flight time. Concentrated heat and flame crashing over like water balloons full of napalm. He didn’t try to dodge, no point. Nothing but wasted heat and effort to counter an already roaring fire. But they did accomplish in creating a great deal of smoke, enough for Maglev to feel safe in advancing on him to rip that god awful suit apart at close range. Seth felt the pull on his suit wane as it heated, intent read like an open book. It just made it easier to deal with him.

The smoke parted as Maglev charged through, hands pulled in and locked to use every bit of power he had to smash against him. He didn’t move, why bother... 'This suit is MINE!!' He loosed, slammed his hands forward, and that foreign press became a tremendous push against everything unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. Loose metallic dust sprayed like accelerated particles, as Maglev gave an all mighty push at every bit of metal in front of him. A column of distortion, pushed sand, and violent metal ejecta crashed against the far wall of the arena, right next to the protected bench. Trainees recoiled as their seats were nearly sand blasted by microscopic metal meteorites. But not a single piece of Seth’s suit moved under that assault. Except the horns on its helmet, both slamming back into place as he reared back. Maglev gave up his assault, but wasn’t fast enough to avoid Seth’s plate metal head slamming into his. Another underestimator gonged away, thrown on his back passed Hothead readying another barrage. The horns slammed back up, slicing back into place to add intimidation to Seth's already burning glare now falling back on him. But Hot was already too slow to change course, redoubling his volley and redoubling his wasted effort.

Seth pressed forward as more blasts haloed and haranged. Metal talons making his weight known to all as they stomped through the fire. He felt glares return, fighters getting back up from their refuting. But nothing mattered but what was before him. He shot suddenly forward through the ineffectual distraction, left leg dragged as he crashed through the thick obscuring smoke. A low sweep rocketing through Hot’s legs and knocked him forward. And spinning Seth about behind him before he could lose a degree. That left still kept off the ground and the right dug in and locked. He bounded up, brought that taloned left up to clutch around the back of Hot’s head, and let all his weight put his point across… hard.

The indignant piece of shit was slammed face first, sand saving him plenty but pressing home the message, just as the last of that obscuring smoke was parted by skilled steel. Samurai slices in, a low upward cut against a hardened metal chest. Resistance and sparks the only reward. He halted his follow through and cut back down at a more respectful speed. But flashing blade met gauntlet plate as Seth forced up a right guard at a similar full tilt. Both metals rang against each other, recoil shared between. But Seth’s counterattack was too far off, leaving Samurai to keep the lead.

A shift over to high left, a quick left guard. A ring and shock of over fast metal. A low right against the abdomen, a fast switch of the leg and a knee block. And another gong and pressure wave to turn this speed to feeling. Hothead spat out a mouth full of sand and struggled. Just in time to make some space. A right guard came up as Seth threw himself into it, still planted foot holding nothing back. He raised Hothead up, pulling his right leg high and lined him up with the still recoiling Samurai.

“*PUhaa* Wait!! WAIT!!!”

A forceful kick and release knocked the two together, head met chest and catching hand, but did nothing against the inertia that carried both away out of the last of the smoke. Just as it parted completely as Erdwut swung in.

The prepared right guard met Eschenwald, hammered against the momentum Seth threw himself into, and put his legs back underneath. Talons scrape into the sand to stop this expected force dead, meeting glare for glare across that soft baking sword. Seth reared back first, left set to knock in his advantage, but Erdwut shot forward, turned his sword flat end on and scraped against its impeding block. Molten earth rippling, but a deep imperceptible clang rang out as well. But this was only half, he quickly shoved Eschenwald up with both hands, grinding into Seth’s guard with molten friction, forcing it up and out of the way. No guard and recoil slowing his left’s return, he was a sitting duck as Erdwut swung round his grip and pulled Eschenwald down hard. But Seth still had his legs. A quick pull on his right, leveled at gut, and an equally quick release. Not much force behind it, but enough to get clear. Erdwut was pushed back, off balance from his moves, swinging Eschenwald down as he stumbled back to the edge of the ring. He stabbed it through the sand to stop this momentum, slotting in right next to Aegis’ almost out of character smugness.

Seth was clear, the center of the ring owned by none but him. He hadn’t won yet, Erdwut, Aegis, and Samurai still hadn’t been knocked out of the ring yet. But that bit of breathing space let something well up inside. It wasn’t like he’d never felt proud before… but fucking hell this felt awesome! He was going toe to toe with the goddamn Elite, and winning! This… this felt amazing, and using his power openly just added on. He was getting recognized as powerful, treated like a threat that demanded respect and understanding. He almost couldn’t feel the heartache and rage that brought this whole thing on. The pride was really getting the better of him.

“This…”

Seth pulled out his right arm and slammed it against his chest, metal resounding against metal. He popped open his helmet releasing a burst of heated air and bearing his arrogant smile for most everyone to see.

“This is what I’ve been waiting for!!”

The heroes around him still shaking off their respective impacts were surprised by the sudden display.

“Some goddamn respect!! To be treated like I’m worthy of something other than contempt!!”

A tinge of catharsis drove him down but failed spectacularly as he forced himself back up.

“To show you assholes just what the hell I can do!!!”

The scattered and realigning Elite all watched on as Seth beamed his, rather uncharacteristic pride to everyone. Aegis smiled as her guilt seemed to get melted away in the shine. She leaned over to Erdwut at her left.

“Hehe. Well at least he’s happy. I was kinda worried he was some kinda horrible monster under all that armor when he was like this. Hehe!”

Erdwut was looking at Aegis with concern now, but almost… almost seemed to soften his hardline at this apparent prideful catharsis. Seth kept up his antics for as long as he could get away with them, though it was odd that the Elite behind him didn’t take this opportunity. Their glares barely souring beyond what was already beaten in. But… that reason became clear as Seth pointed up to the podium to call out Para for putting him down.

“And you better… believe…”

Because he was pointing to an empty podium, Para wasn't in his immediate line of sight. He felt out, saw movement behind Aegis’ right, dropped his point down. Right on to the advancing Para just now reaching the ring’s edge. With a look of pure malice and both hands leveled upon him. Aegis followed his sight line, caught sight at the last second, but it was already too late. The air between them tore asunder, the sand rippling into violent waveforms, and the final expression of this hateful fear was realized. And felt to the very core.

“AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!”

Those metal claws tried to crush his ears closed, but even they couldn’t escape. He slammed his helmet shut, tried to close it off and kill the resonance, but it only added reverb to the cacophony tearing at everything he was. He screamed out without hope of restraint, but was baffled to nothing as he fell to his knees. The suit shook, metal screeched along with the symphonic assault. His body rippled, muscle, bone, teeth, and tissue tore and bleed as they were raked by the constant sound. He felt his very being shake against its will. The electron threads rattled with a tune too strong to keep playing, snapping with every agonizing wave beating too fast to even distinguish. He collapsed forward, horns buried into the sand, head trying desperately to bury itself and escape. It was like before, like when Para shook the abyss. But now it was him, it was all of him!

Aegis finally reacted, breaking her stance and blaring above the tortuous cacophony.

“What the hell are you doing Para!?! You’re supposed to be-”

“You heard what I said at the start!! He was challenged by the Elite!! That means all of us!! And you better believe I’m not going to just stand by and let this damn unpowered fraud make a fool of the most powerful heroes here!!!”

Aegis was livid, angrier than most had ever seen her. But she couldn’t act on her anger as Para turned to Erdwut’s renewed hard line.

“Now knock this bastard out already so we can be done with him!!”

Erdwut hesitated, but only for a second. He was in agreement, if only on principle not bias. He brought Eschenwald up, condemnation reaffirmed in his gait, advancing back into the center of the ring to put an end to this. He did not reel away from the sonic pillar cutting the air apart beside him as he walked it parallel, but he stopped halfway regardless. Because the suit’s eyes began to burn brighter.

The world was nearly gone, red creeping into his sight as his blood boiled too readily to contain. But Seth couldn’t escape the weight and agony driving him lower and lower. Deeper and deeper, farther and farther from himself. The red was turning black, the world was being cut away, it was happening again but. The memories, the fear, the pain, the scar reigniting across his eye, the burning pit carved out of his chest. Things he couldn’t control, things screaming at him to be rectified. To be made whole and justified. The pain spread, from that deep recess he’d been pushed down into, to the fine edges across his suit. That nonexistent scar burned through metal and fiber. He felt himself move without volition, metal claws pushing against the weight forcing it down, pushing him upward under power he didn’t have. He felt himself howl in pain, but he couldn’t move his mouth. He felt the emptiness inside himself despite all the power he’d absorbed before. A hunger. Ravenous. He needed more… He needed it all!! He felt the suit crack, layer after layer, threading snap in violent succession counter to the sonic barrage. And then he felt nothing at all.

Erdwut was snapped out of hesitation as Seth seemed to fight through pain and rise up off the ground, the unnatural contortions of agony keeping him back. He watched as a fine crack formed under those burning eyes, a jagged edge rose and fell toward the snout like front. It broke and snapped like a beast breaking a muzzle, like the suit was coming to life as the laceroid it resembled. Terror and rage froze him solid, pushed back that condemnation, but his dread was short lived… As that maw snapped apart and roared in defiance of the sonic cacophony… And a newborn sun collapsed in on itself.

The air cracked and caved, sand couldn’t tell whether to flee or be aerosolized. But everything, everyone felt the force screaming out at its center, and felt their very existence be dragged toward it without mercy. The metal floor below buckled upward, peeled like wallpaper in foot deep chunks toward the black hole that had been awakened. The heroes fought against it, digging feet and hands in, reaching out and keeping hold of each other, and stabbing blade and bar against the whirlpool opening up in reality before them. Suddenly, like the flashbulbs of thousands of cameras exploding in sequence, the hardlight projectors in the walls of the arena burst in showers of electrical overload. Electrical arcs thundered past them, the pull strong enough to drag power over open distance. The power that now flowed in to fill that demanding gap, blowing out everything with its overbearing shine, blinding everyone to cover and to cower before it… Before that maw slammed closed and shut it all out. Sending everything into darkness... save for the rising glow of burning sand and slow ions left to flare and die.

A heavy clawed foot shook that darkness, pulled up and rose off its knee, sand piled up and glassed around it in rippling patterns, buckled metal creaking under its destabilized weight. The Elite rubbed their light washed eyes, reoriented themselves to meet what ever the hell this was. Erdwut gritted teeth and gripped Eschenwald with new found hatred. Aegis winced and hardened her stance on her shields between the audience and this fight. And Para cowered back, his attack staunched utterly by its counterintuity, and all that deep seated spite turning back into fear at what it had caused. At the sight of Seth rising up through the darkness surrounding bleeding away at his edges, through the burn and waft of molten glass surrounding him like the crater of a fallen star. Fear turning physical as he turned to face him, maw grinding against itself in congruent breath, stance contorted and weighed down by itself, and a burning blood red eye rising over the darkness and staring straight back at him.

There was no time or care for more tension. A single step forward like a striding titan, trailing ozone and air turned and buckled metal into a screaming choir. The crescendo flattened to reverberating silence as the floor fell in line, a malicious advance in Para’s direction clear. And a blasphemy the Elite saw fit to cease in its tracks, a single step too much to allow. Erdwut blasting forward with all the speed he could muster, Eschenwald wanting nothing but to cleave through its chest. But a full metal right flashed up, the molten blade rippled to trailing slag, deftly pushed over and away, and that right poised high between blade and wielder. Another step and that right fell around his neck, and carried on to toss him aside.

Metal screeching from behind, Maglev was striking on his own volition. Pulling the broken floor up from its sandy cover, stealing a slab to throw and add to the already burdensome weight. Another screeching step and the air voiced its flight, a metal wall set to crush Seth down. Talons righted alongside each other, the right foot locking in and leveling, the whole body aiming without a loss in stride. Even as that talon loosed and stamped that metal slab in half. Snapped and folded, halves shorn to screech still under Maglev’s push. The right hand flashed up again, claws digging into the screaming flying metal. That right foot slammed down, and that half was thrown back at its source in spite of the force put upon it. That burning red eye never leaving Para, but the sound of metal meeting body and bone snapping hard clear enough indication to its efficacy.

Presence filled the left side, Ziyou and Samurai reaching in unison, paired foot falls masking what may. Samurai went low, set to stab his sword into one of the leg joints. Ziyou went high, leaping off Samurai’s back. The blade made contact as another step flattened its course, hip servo square in its sights. But found only ungiving metal as it glanced off, just sparks and a dulled edge for its consolation. Ziyou’s attack came in at the back, a right swung hard with a tiger roar adjoining it. She was getting serious and using her powers. Her strike banging hard to dislocate and disjoint, but resulted in nothing but shattered claws and broken teeth. Both rebounded off their failed attacks and shifted. Ziyou clambered on and held to that shoulder, pressed her feet into the back and continued hammering the same spot over and over again. Samurai shifted ahead of him to attack the opposite side, a horizontal slice to judge the articulation. A whole zodiac’s worth of animal calls resounded off that left shoulder, Ziyou had a lot of tattoos, but each one just bashed away as the last of the buckled metal screamed flat. The right flashed up, Samurai’s sword only finding a full metal hand again. But this time a quick shift and pull away slashed that palm instead.

An ox call slammed the shoulder, and the left arm moved at last, but only to fold over and back at its attacker. A metal claw grabbed Ziyou by the head and pulled her over. She had plenty of grip against gravity but nothing against retaliation. She was flipped over that beaten shoulder, loosed to fall head first into the ground. She extended her arms to cartwheel away, but never touched ground as that slashed right came and snatched her foot. Samurai saw what was coming and ducked low, lining up to strike an expansion joint as Ziyou was flung hard over him. As she was tossed away to find another wall, trained metal shot forward at a small slit between suit plates covering that articulating mid. But stopped dead in a new found screech, blunted edge a narrow inch from contact, and a death-gripping left locked over the blade. It was lifted away, Samurai letting go in learned temperance. The left flinging it away in exacerbation, stabbing its ringing song into the arena wall. Samurai backed up and out of the way, it was clear he couldn’t do much even with a sword.

And Hothead was already in his place, jetting in as Ziyou slammed off a wall now twice broken. He crossed in front, a balled up fire roiling and straining between his hands, a full force attack now without risk of collateral damage. The reverberating gong of another step was drowned as a gout of flame roared it away, enveloping the armor in orange and yellow and red. But spreading out in its shadow. That burning eye lost sight of its obsession, but Para could see that eye burn brighter than the surrounding conflagration. As suddenly the menacing metal monster shot out from the torrent, a right back hand locked and leveled at Hothead’s face, and the total ire of that burning red eye locked down on him. He only had a chance to stop attacking as a titanic bitch slap slammed him, extinguishing flames with force alone, and sent Hot careening off to break that starting South wall for yet another time. That eye turned back up and burned its ferocity at Para, only a few feet separated them now, and every step adding to the ambient hell exuded by that torrential glare.

Another echoing step and that wrath became physical, as the heat of the suit poured over Aegis. She gritted her teeth, duty to her team out weighing her feelings, duty to the people behind her even more demanding. She lowered an arm away from her shield, locked it hard between the two, asserted her defense with every bit of fury she had to bear. A final step was stopped in its decimating cadence, but not by an assertive arm, but by the guilt ridden concern unable to be buried beneath that fury. A message inescapably written in her fought expression.

“Don’t go down this road!”

All that metal hesitated for a moment, but it may as well have been a timeless expanse. Long enough for that burning eye to blink and dim, for the world cut back against the darkness swallowing it, long enough for Seth to feel himself again. Long enough for the realization of another rampage to be dropped upon his mind, long enough for that world to fall flat as that pit in his chest caved in further… And long enough for Erdwut to deaden it further, Eschenwald leveled flat end on at his head. Impact resounded with metal on metal, cracking the skull beneath against that ricocheting visage, knocking all of him away with violent force. His weight and grounding denied to fly, to crash down like a fallen plane, to be left in a heap to take in this realization. To feel the reality of his inescapable burden. And feel the world fall away again upon the sandy floor outside the ring.