In every direction, along every vector, across every sense and sound and possible input, Seth could hear it. Like that barely discernible whisper, once incomprehensible and low, was now subsuming him to his very core. Bloating out anything in its path. Blinding him to anything but what was ahead. A creeping void at the edges of his vision. An abyss revived… or never defeated in the first place. The Garkah echoed through it like travelers on the wrong side of a mountain range, their community and shared emotion so far away as to not even be a star flickering in the emptiness. And leaving Seth with nothing. All he could feel, all he could express, the only thing that showed through this swallowing abyss… was rage.

Rage at being made to work harder and harder for some stupid dream! Some useless hope of being a hero after everything that had happened! After everything he’d caused! Rage at the bias and ridicule he had to suffer through the whole way! Rage at having to relive the hell he escaped from time and time again! Rage at having the only things left of his past life destroyed before his own eyes for someone else’s twisted amusement! Because of someone else’s horseshit ideals! Rage at the pain and struggle of it all! At having to go all out and risk everything just to tell that same bias to eat shit and DIE! And rage at losing it all despite everything!! But most of all… Rage that all of it is because of Para.

The darkness of the arena flared crimson as Seth rose from the charred and strained bench, electric tendrils still clinging to the wall burned to jagged spread at his back. He took a step like a mountain deciding to move, and disregarding everything in its path. The transparent barrier protecting this bench of failure melted and popped, arcs scorching through it and metal pushing and caving it to a grotesque puddle under foot. Every step was titanic, slow and thunderous like a god scorned. The sand at his feet glassed as his still transformed suit burned with the heat of so much rage made manifest.

But… every step brought something else along with it. The creeping darkness highlighted in red glow grew dimmer. That whisper permeating through him was becoming just as distant, muted. His stride, his pace, his even step. A nostalgic easing calm rising with every foot fall into the silence. Like the matching of a rhythm with his heartbeat. He could feel himself, but only numb and buried. He was heavy, straining against the inside of his suit. He couldn’t move his mouth, but he could see right through the burned away view slits like they were his eyes. It was gradual, but the dim arena gave his mind a chance as his steps lulled away the past. It was still there, still burning inside and around him, but waned to warming fire with each echoing hypnotic step toward the door.

The world soon stopped being so empty, rage becoming depression and giving right of way to that numbed body. And what surrounded it. He could hear the reception still going on in the foyer, family and friends congratulating the new recruits and partying with the other heroes. He couldn’t make out who all was there, but he didn’t care, he couldn't. His mind knew full well it shouldn’t remain in this state, it couldn't. He could remember what Aegis had said, that he just had to hold out for HQ to take his case. He just had to hold on. But really he just wanted this day to be over already. To just disappear into the emptiness of sleep and have everything be behind him again. But… he had to get through the party to even have that hope. The door ahead seemed smaller. A clawed hand grabbing the handle like an oversized mitt. It burned under its grip, was narrowly pulled off by undue strength too strained to hold back more. The light from the outside burned into the helmet, but dimmed before he could squint. And what was waiting for him battered what resolve had been won.

The foyer was packed beyond reason, most of the audience still here and wanting. They thronged around the recruits and their families, around the heroes who fought today, around the members of the Elite still here.

‘Too… many people!’

Seth couldn’t see all of them, but familiar voices cut over the crowd. The trainees, their trainers, Aegis… Ziyou… and Para! Mediknight was probably back at the medical level of the Hill. Samurai and Kaz were definitely off celebrating somewhere else. Erdwut and the rest were probably off to a different assignment, at least that’s what it sounded like before. The crowd was dense but amorphous, they flowed from recruit to hero and back. A passage through the main thoroughfare of the periphery seemed to at least be kept clear out of courtesy. And Seth lumbered toward it with purpose, wearily walking through part of the crowd surrounding David. He couldn’t will himself to move faster, just holding it together was adding to the drag on his mind, but for some reason the crowd parted and… cowered back as he approached. He didn’t pay them any mind, he couldn’t, but heard them complain about the heat, and whimper the sight of him.

His suit was getting too hot to even walk around in, the skeletal frame found an in through the numb, singed at the parts left barren by the loss of their gel and what was ever left of his connector suit. He had to hurry. The tiles of the periphery creaked and burned under metal talons, the tail dragged along and scorched its own meandering path. He couldn’t stop. He cleared the crowd, turned and started toward the dormitory hall. Toward sanctuary. A momentary uplift, a second wind against the drag. But all it brought with it was more resolution in the hell surrounding him. He felt eyes on him, the eyes of prejudice, the eyes of malice, of worry and concern, of pity and disgust. They didn’t matter, they shouldn't matter, he just had to make it a few more meters to get out of this crowded powder keg. There was nothing to stop him, nothing between him ending this accursed day once and for all, nothing but-

“HEY TINMAN!!!”

A sudden searing halt, and all the progress he'd made was obliterated. As Para yelled out over the sounds of the crowd.

‘You… just had to… Didn’t you!?!’

It took everything he had left to not turn and face his challenger, to just let him make an ass of himself for everyone to see, to not let go and murder him here and now! But the quiet that resulted from that callous call only added to the pressure upon him. He could see out the right side of his helmet, a part in the crowd was growing, revealing where Para and Aegis had been entertaining their audience. The center of the foyer, and the densest part of the party. He could see Aegis’ face in her palm, but fought to avoid looking at Para for as long as he cou-

“What’s wrong!!? Having trouble coming to terms!!?”

The world was trying to fade away, the only clarity being the exact spot he was trying to avoid. The crowd was completely silent, the awkward situation only added more pressure on Seth to act. He could see his room, see the door to sanctuary, but his body refused to move the way he wanted to, the periphery fading to an indistinct smudge of no meaning at all. An impossible destination. The tiles at his feet melted under his weight as he struggled to keep from acknowledging the demon staring him down, from inevitably falling away again and destroying even this little bit of his life left to him. But every word was like another strike of a dry match. But there was something else, like the faint smell of rain, of hope. A tinge, emotion cutting through the void and distance. The Garkah finding their way to him, but they needed time. Time seemingly afforded as he heard Aegis’ palm grab Para’s shoulder in restraint.

“Okay Para, that’s enough-”

The sound of it getting slapped away.

“No!! That’s not enough!! I warned him from DAY 1 that he wasn’t meant for this! DAY 1!! And yet here he is, unable to deal with reality!”

Every fiber of Seth’s being screamed at him, betrayed his will, wanted to turn Para into a paste streak across the foyer. The tiles boiled under his feet but the tinge finally broking through enough to get to his ear. Threat blaring across with all the Garkah could muster.

“Seth!!! Listen!! You need to hold on, you need to stay here!! We can get you clear but you need to stay yourself!! You need to HOLD ON!!!”

The part in the crowd grew as the situation grew tenser, and Para seemed to go on unabated.

“Unable to deal with the fact his suit dominates his identity!! Unable to deal with the rigors of actual combat!! Unable to pass a challenge without resorting to outright cheating!!”

“Seth you need to shut him out!!! Don’t listen to him!! Focus on me!!!”

The part grew wider, people pressed back. Most to avoid ire, but some began to wince in pain away from the gap.

“I mean look at him!! He can’t even turn his suit back!! He can’t deal with his own problems!! Can’t control himself when the situation calls for it!!”

“SETH!!! You NEED to HOLD ON!!!”

Para shifted, turned away from Aegis’ aggressively glaring face and looked straight into Seth’s struggling eye.

“In the end he never deserved to be a hero!”

That eye finally saw him, every fiber and sense saw nothing but him. Felt nothing but him. Knew nothing but him. Saw every contour and pour and wrinkle on that smug universe collapsing grin. That match was finally lit.

Perception snapped the world to a stop, time frozen in fear of what had just been awakened. It even fell away in slow motion, the pull dragging Seth down deeper inside himself too slow on the uptake. Like he’d fallen into an event horizon of his own being. Soon there was nothing… no one… an empty void overlapping him until there were only two things left in the entire world. Para… and Rage.

Trained reaction times paid their dues as the heroes in the foyer caught up. Eyes moving like they caught sight of a predator in their midst. Aegis moved faster than the rest, but her only winning was a vain turn toward that danger. Toward that armored head turning toward Para with all the malice of that scorned god brought to bear. And that left eye rising over its horizon like a supercritical supernova.

Perception shifted and reality finally caught up with it, but the change was faster than even Seth could feel, faster than the world could be taken from him, faster than what should even be possible. Aegis was pulling her arms up to stop it, muscles building out like they were about to snap in physical limitation. Heroes across the room were just now stancing as if they’d only just found out, and Para was finally catching up with the bare minimum of what had occurred. Even sight too slow to keep up. As that supernova willed itself into his face, with a clawed and plated fist tearing the air apart to meet it. The gap between evaporated like it was never there in the first place. And the reckoning coming upon him at long last.

The strike came at equal speed, no obstacles, no intermediaries, no refs, no bullshit threats to keep him in line. And no escape this time. All of Seth’s rage solidified around that fist, power boiling like blood from a wound and wisping into jagged forms. All the hell that he’d experienced powering it beyond, burning everything away as fuel. And that fist was never going to be stopped… Ever… Again!

To Aegis and the observant in the crowd, in one instant Seth was across the room burning a hole in the floor and glaring a hole through Para’s head, the next he was standing where Para used to be, arm thrown out with all its energy rippling existence itself in its wake. The punch made contact faster than it could ever have been seen, plate mail going supersonic at point blank range. Metal crunching Para’s left cheek, his face barely able to contort, nerves too slow to signal... all as they took in that oozing red power. Trained and hardened bone shattered, toughened flesh rippled and tore, and an eye ceased to exist in its socket as that power rejected him. The imperceptible instant flashed before everyone’s eyes, as the material world caught up with reality. First came the torn apart air crashing apart, whipping away all in its path. Only for it to smash back together, filling the gap that had been left in the wake with its own overstressed fire. Next, Para shot away, smashing through the glass façade of the foyer and into the night sky over the Hill’s stairs, blood trailing his spiraling path. Finally all the aforementioned actions lead to their inevitable reaction, as all that displaced air rebounded back and- *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*.

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

The night was middling, cloudy and laden, but Para was clear as a flare shot up for all to see. The air rushed passed as servos shifted mid flight, straightening upright and bringing both hands together over head. Para was tumbling through the air, half conscious from the pain and slowing from the drag. He tumbled upright just in time for that burning eye to over take what it had imparted.

The arms spiked down on his gut, momentum cut through sheer force. Para’s back cratering several concrete steps on impact. A near ton of metal fell straight down and landed on the stair up from him, slamming him off the broken concrete. Right in line for a plated talon to kick and caved in his side, before all of it slammed back down to give chase. Para tumbled again, bouncing off step after step in a sickening pinwheel. Excessive weight crushed step after step as it bounded after him. Catching up again with a right brought high down on to his chest. Half whole and fighting hard, Para guarded, but his arm shattered and he was bounced off another shattered stair, the snapping sounds mixing in with the crumble of rubble. He rebounded up with his legs in the air, the left subsuming one of them pulling him up. It tore into it, power oozing out without regard or control as it dragged him high overhead, the whole suit continuing to crash down the stairs at increasing speed. The left bashed Para to the side, still conscious enough to put his arms up in defense. More breaking snaps as he was smashed into the stairs. Momentum followed though, rebounding him back over to the other side. Another bash, concrete scattered and more bones broken by the brutish display. Another rebound, Para whipped from side to side, slammed him down again and again as they both neared the bottom.

Finally it all approached its halting, the other hand adding its hold and pulling Para’s barely conscious and broken body overhead. Talons kicked off and devastated the stairway over the last few stories, as those claws flung him down to their base, The whole suit flipped over with the momentum. Para crunched down, the concreted path shattered like his bones. Torrential weight slammed down, talons clawing away at all the built up inertia, eyes still locked on their target with all the nuance of a suicidal star. The concrete of the foot path turned to powder and clouded the new battlefield, chunks of stair rumbling down the incline of the Hill, adding more dust to the air. The street lights of the wide footpath illuminated everything as the suit rose from its landing point, claws and talons trailing frying concrete and oozing power. There was nothing standing between them and Para… nothing but- *ZZZEEEEEHHHWWWW*