Armored feet, weighed down by an immeasurable burden, slowly and rhythmically stomped through the light scorched rut that was now the plaza before The Hill. The abused concrete crumbling to dust under each overstressed metallic step. The entire district surrounding stuck in darkness, the powerlines drained and fried by siphon and stellar might, only The Hill itself left as a bastion against the dark. The rut tapered off as concrete turned to asphalt and this march stretched into the empty streets of the still sleeping city. Streetlights flickered as those steps entered their pools, as the darkness created was left behind. The eyes of the suit were still dark and empty, burned out for a second time but now in tandem with the scorched edges of that twice broken maw, and the charred edges of the suit proper. These steps grew heavier. Not stomped in menace or diligence, but like the will to continue was waning each time a foot fell. The arms swayed and clanked at their sides too empty to hold position. The head only hunched slightly, but still hung in a similar fashion. All signs pointing to a common conclusion.

Seth was tired. Tired from fighting back to back bouts with excessive stakes. Tired of the wrath and hate that filled him far too many times. Tired of endlessly reaching for… He couldn’t even remember what anymore. The only thing he was now, the only thing that was left of him... was tired. And the only thing he wanted to do was go home. To go to bed. To leave this accursed day in the past and move on. The faint remainder of his will and conscience held this feeling like a candle against the wind, not knowing where it came from or who lit it. But it was all he knew now, and all he cared about. Everything else consumed by the abyss still clinging tight to his edges, holding tight to his psyche. Only kept at bay by the feelings shining in that dim fleeting flame. He continued his trudge through the empty streets of Kadia with that single purpose left, and a clear vision of his ultimate goal. To just finally rest.

The night dragged on, empty streets devoid of cars or people or any sign of life. The hour too late for the night crowds and too early for the morning shifts, but still eerily empty. A faint light grew in the east, cloudy skies reflected and advanced the dawn beyond its reach. A fog had rolled in and swallowed much of the city from the northeast, from the wide Terrace River that ended alongside it. The mist only adding to the spread of the coming dawn, blotted out any definition that could be had of it beyond the rising light. The streets remained empty as the time for early commuters came, the quiet din of their starting days seeming distant, separated. The fog kept Seth blind of his surroundings, the buildings rendered nothing but shadows. Even as the sun slowly burned it away. Details were afforded only to things in his general vicinity. A few parked cars on the side of the road. A flashing street light behind the cloud ahead. Emergency lights warning in tandem on the shadow filled side streets. .

The fog grew thinner the farther he got, and the city’s defenses becoming clearer in kind. The side streets at every intersection were closed off by walling bollards, the only path open the one ahead. But he had but one path to walk anyway. Through what senses left standing he felt eyes on his back, heard echoing footfalls on all sides. Someone was shadowing him, keeping pace and keeping hidden as best they could. A pretty clear sense that they would ambush and corral him if he ever deviated. But their distance was considerable, and Seth had little care for turning around or for fighting any more. The fog’s coverage diminished to a cumulative haze as he drew closer and closer to home, to his self-affirmed salvation.

But from that loose haze appeared more solid shadows, blocky shapes that took up the whole of the wide road that he'd walked. A shout echoing out from the shapes gave a small indicator of what awaited him. The sound of formation, orders, and the intermittent hum of meticulous machine placement. As he trundled on, that speculation was affirmed. An armored roadblock set up by the military. Tanks taking up the bulk of the space, angled matte green hulls and compact gun barrels for such city incursions. Armored personnel carriers taking the flanks, their troops spread out before them and their limited firepower added to the mix. A brace of guns mounted to the tops of the armor, heavy machine guns meant to fend off infantry attacks in such confined spaces. Finally a lowered wall of bollards kept that mechanized platoon of soldiers separated from their intended target. A mix of rifles and shoulder launched munitions all they were afforded. All in all… still little for Seth to care about, least of all in the state he was in.

As he cleared the distance built fog, a gruff voice echoed from the tensing defensive line, all guns shifting and turrets swiveling to all point to him. Orders to keep calm and hold fire, but be ready. A startup of a megaphone and that gruff voice became directed as it yelled through the mist covered city.

“HALT!!!”

The commander of the roadblock looked armored to the teeth, padded helmet and vest with matching shoulder and arm guards. No doubt continued with leg armor below the bollard. His face was stern, a voice to match, but it beguiled a more deep seated concern, a fear that shook his words. He had experienced something not too dissimilar to this before. Even if it was just a single one this time, even if it wasn’t really one of them, it was clear he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was facing another laceroid. The emotions understood felt hollow, second hand, directed just so he could understand through the burden placed upon him. But Seth never stopped his slow weighted advance. He may as well have never heard him in the first place.

“I SAID HALT DAMNIT!!! IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE-”

The unceasing metallic metronome cut the commander off without a beat out of place. His fear contorting to take the insult, passing it off as childishness at best. He dropped his megaphone to curse to himself.

“Son of a bitch! PERKINS!! FIRE A WARNING SHOT!!”

A soldier on his right loudly affirmed and leveled his rifle in Seth’s direction. The distance was far, but it was enough to ensure he knew where to shoot. The rifle cracked and a round skipped off the asphalt. The crack echoing with its whizzing underscore, but followed by the continued beat of monotonous steps. The commander’s brow furrowed deeper than its already agitated position, hunching over the bollard defensive line. He understood this wasn’t going to end so simply. He raised a hand, a clear indicator that all the soldiers on the line understood. He took a deep closed breath as if he still struggled with dooming his opponent, but he had to go ahead with what must be done.

“ALL RIFLES!!! OPEN FIRE!!!”

The quiet of the city was rendered a distant afterthought as a torrent of cracks started with no hesitation. Automatic rifles poured fire upon him in a cacophonous barrage, only accented by the baffled sounds of rounds ricocheting. The storm of lead nipped at the asphalt, misses and general deviation spattering pebbles into the air. But the only reward they got from hitting their marks were puffs and sparks. Seth continued his advance without regard, small caliber rounds like these were never a threat, and his focus on that flame never inching away in the slightest. The commander took the ineffectuality of the barrage as only further consternation. He held a hand to his helmeted ear, a microphone set in for relaying orders under excessive noise pollution.

“50s!!! OPEN UP!!!”

The top mounts on the tanks and APCs all took this order, HMGs playing cello in this lead orchestra. The larger rounds added more sparks and fire to the scene, more asphalt dust to their surrounding, but still couldn’t succeed in slowing his already depressed pace. And yet the beating upon his suit still had an effect, the tinge of irritability rising with the shell caliber. A small flicker eating away at that candle. The commander was thoroughly perturbed now, history was repeating to him. And it meant hell was reincarnated.

“APCs!!! OPEN FIRE!!! VASQUEZ, THOMAS!!! HIT HIM WITH THE AT!!!”

The armored personnel carriers started firing away, thirty millimeter chain guns with armor piercing rounds so they don’t light the city on fire. Solid shots of bass pounding the suit in separate successions, metal spalling like firework stars. But it held, the suit and the pace. That torrent rendered a fierce wind whipping amidst that sheltered flame, flickered its light, added something more than fatigue to this monolith… Pain.

A round veered from center mass and hit an arm, added weight to recoil before the next step could be finished. Throwing off. The cadence broke like it was a hypnotizing drone, the flame's dance lost to its only recipient. The right eye opened, that resistant right that survived its take over and subsuming but still buried deep inside it all. Another fragment of what Seth was, a surviving remainder bereft of memory that now found itself awake and under fire. Just in time for shoulder mounted antitank rockets to come into play. Two booms in timed sequence, matched as best they could against the barrage so their munitions don’t get intercepted by friendly fire. Stubby and finned, the rockets jetted toward him bearing specialized explosives meant to defeat armor not too dissimilar to his. A fact that forced that fragment awake from under all the burdening weight. They were at least slow by contemporary comparison, one from either side but both pointed at center of mass. Should be an easy dodge. But that awakened mind found itself unable to move, his body too depressed by fatigue and the still clinging hold of the abyss. Despite this he had a bit of power at his disposal, and those rockets had detonation fuses. He focused, sent power to small timer circuits not expecting a wakeup call so soon. And those rockets exploded into devastating rings of smoke and shrapnel. A wave of heat and the plink of the detonated ordinance washed over, highlighted the world that fragment had woken up to. Even as smoke shadowed him from the sight of the firing line, as the cacophony finally quieted without a target.

“CEASE FIRE!!! CEASE FIRE!!!”

The commander wanted to be sure of Seth’s state before ordering further attacks, but it was obvious that this was useless. The echoing booms died out with the smoke, replaced by that still ever continuous and monotonous walk. His heart visibly sank as that metal shell cut through, but fear did not take hold of him. The awake part of Seth’s psyche could make out his dismay, no second hand direction needed. Yet his body and the better part of his mind were still set on one thing and one thing only. Getting home. And that thought crept into the awakened part like an intrusive yawn. It dragged at it like it wanted to be made whole, like it shouldn’t be awake. But the given circumstances demanded its consciousness. The commander steeled his nerve and raised his hand to his ear again, the eyes of transitory fear staring down Seth’s. Fear burning to anger. Anger at having to relive the hell he was pulled out of, anger that another hell was about to be realized. Anger at truly dooming his men if all else fails.

“TANKS!!! FIRE AT WILL!!!”

The soldiers ducked from their firing positions, gunners closed their hatches and prepared, but the commander stayed up. He had to be sure this worked. The central tank callously whirred to life, barrel angling to fully acquire the shot. The commander braced hard on the bollard, but concussive force is a hell of an expectation shifter. The boom kicked the air hard down the line, and he was battered down for his fearful need. The fragment could still hold sway over perceptive reflex, though fought for just the slightest response. The shell left the barrel in a solid piece, but split rather quickly as air dragged it apart. A sabot discarded from a finned metal penetrator. A solid chuck of dumb metal going way too fast. There was little he could do, the arms refusing to guard and the feet to shift, but it was just metal anyway. And he’d taken worse hits befo- *BWEOUHHHH*

It struck home on the left chest plate and spalled like all the other dumb metal munitions. But fucking hell it hit hard! The rod caved and compacted, cracked in twain, and scattered into a flash of friction heated sparks that splayed every which way. The plate bunched inward, the threads holding tight, but the impact compressed them all too hard to avoid. Seth was smacked like a baseball bat had found its way in, recoiling him in a halo of flash melted slag, arm and shoulder hurled back. the metronome shattered, that flickering flame rendered a glowing wick as his foot was forced to take a step back from its once locked path.

The fatigue locking him down was forcibly receded. The whole of Seth was definitely awake now, no fragmented pieces alone in the dark, and that was not going to happen… ever… again. He hunched forward off the recoil, body not quite catching up with this rescission. The fatigue now just a physical counter to retaliation. It retook his step like a preprogrammed robot, but his mind raced at what to do about the next shot. He didn’t know why he was here, what he was doing, but none of that matter in the slightest. That glowing wick flared its hardest, trying to redraw his mind, but a bit of power slipped up from under that receding fatigue. Something to use, something to work with. The right tank trained over off his recoiled movements, as the commander relocked his gaze in realization that this was worse than his previous hell now.

Concussion force battered the line again as the tank fired. The shell leaving the barrel this time was different, a solid piece but oddly shaped. A rod extending out from a wider cylindrical base. A HEAT round, like the rockets. And Seth wasn’t going to take any more hits. A shift in the layers of the suit, the ark metal coating inside segmenting and spinning against the inner layers. The flame... the Garkah were agreeing with him. He jammed the power he’d been given in, a slapdash magnetic pulse generator starting up like it was nothing but an afterthought. The bulk of that power hit this new system and loosed out as he took another step. A radiating wave pushed out from the suit, striking and conking the shell from its straight and narrow flight path. It tumbled, catching drag it wasn’t made for. Sailing end over end it passed, finned end skipping off the asphalt. The back disintegrated but skipped again, hitting rod down and detonating behind. The air slammed against the suit as chunks of road and metal shrapnel struck, the worst avoided but the danger far from denied.

The commander had withstood the second blast enough to retain his lock, but he was wishing he hadn’t. He shook in apprehension as the third tank finished aiming and fired. Another blast, but his fear led to frozen disregard of it. Another shell, this one fat, solid, and standard. Full of high explosive, not as dangerous to the armor, but it will bang Seth around too much for comfort. Another charge up and power feed. Another step loosed repulsive magnetic pulse. It pushed the shell off its flight path and threw it over his right shoulder. The fat gymnastic hunk of explosives dropping its path close to the sidewalk, touched the road fuse first and-

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Windows on the nearby building shattered. The blast wave kicking the suit like a bass pedal, bashing him forward and cutting the world out of stereo. A trickle of blood tickled at a lobe, as pain beat out the ring in his ears. But despite the fiery smoke that swallowed him up, despite meticulous ordinance and the pressure wave's disregard, the beat of metal on asphalt continued and Seth came back into view unharmed.

The commander looked to barely be handling the inability to defeat this metal monstrosity, his troops catching this fear for themselves. Slowly, painfully he raised a shaking hand, a silent signal so they wouldn’t hear the fear in his voice. The tanks held their fire, the cycling of rounds undoubtedly taking place. The troops retook their positions but could do little to suppress this collective apprehension. The APCs reacquired their target, the top mounted machine gunners turned back out and racked their cellos to prepare for the crescendo. Every gun was set to do whatever they could to this ever advancing and nigh indestructible terror. The commander kept raising his hand high for everyone to see, for Seth to see and feel at least some amount of fear for what was about to befall him. One last ditch bluff to get him to stop, to give up, to end this terror before it started all over again. He closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see their vain attempt at stymying the inevitable end in utter failure. But a whirling whistle caught everyone’s ear before he could solidify his grim resolve.

A metallic tone, like metal in the air. He opened his eyes in time to see a massive metal slab stab down passed his bollard, recoiling him before he realized what it meant.

“Sorry, ‘scuse me, coming through!”

A voice like a flower drenched in motor oil broke all of this fear drowning everything out, a overblown stature that immediately drew relieved attention from every frightened soldier. It was a hero, come to spare them this fate. And a heavy hitter if there ever was one. She was tall, a good six ten, and with a physique that could only truly be called amazonian. Her hair blond, but kept short and a little spiky. Her suit surplus like much of the rest, an odd chrome detailing the only stand out feature of the standard dark grey suit. Her insignia though clearly where all her creativity was put, though vanity may be a bit more apt. A landscape sunrise over a field of broken debris, with her holding a massive sword up in a victorious pose. Seth couldn’t really place who she was, but it was pretty easy to guess her specialty. The slab of metal, no... the sword she just chucked over too many unprepared heads was truly abhorrent in size, a blade as tall as or taller than she was and at least a foot and a half in width with a handle that could seat four hands. Its surface gleaming a dimming greenish hue, not as vibrant as the true Eschenwald but still definitely in the running. Whoever she was, this wasn’t going to end easy.

The commander narrowly slid down the bollard as she approached from the rear of the defensive line, after shot putting her sword rather dangerously close to him. But his relief had to be muted, for the soldier’s sake.

“Buster!! They said you were headed here, but what the hell took so long!?!”

She raised up her bulky arm and rubbed the back of her head as she stooped to face the exacerbated commander.

“Heh…heh. Sorry, it’s a bit early for my shift.”

The commander did everything in his power to not chastise her for sleeping in on a day like today. But he seemed to notice just as Seth did. The monotonous beat of his advance had stopped. The commander turned back, both to draw attention back to the task at hand and to see why Seth now stood dead in his tracks.

That candle, that hypnotic guiding flame, that last lone crack in the abyss subsuming him was snuffed out. All around him he could feel the abyss waking up, feel it ripple in the presence of real resistance, of a real fight. His subconscious, the Garkah, nothing could keep it suppressed anymore. The fatigue and more appealing emotional prospects disregarded and tossed aside. It was coming back to the forefront with a will all its own.

Opposite this waxing abyss, this Buster seemed to smile despite the commander’s dire attitude, like it was her natural state. She moved past him and hopped the bollard. Reaching a hand out to grasp her sword, the hue reversing its dim and increasing in luster.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting!! Not many villains choose to rampage so early in the morning!! But hey, I’m not complaining… about your timing!”

A tension in her grasping arm, muscles made themselves known through short cut sleeve, the wrapping on the grip crinkled audibly in the now quieted air.

“What I will say is you have shit choice in targets!!”

Her smile waned, though her eyes belied nothing of her intent.

“You have shit regard for other’s wellbeing!!”

The sword suddenly lifted, asphalt afforded no purchase on the now dazzling blade that Buster turned around in her hand like a pen… instead of the hundred pound slab of metal that it was. She flashed it into an offensive pointing stance over her right shoulder, hands shifting to compensate. Her smile disappeared in the exuding hue of the sword, and a true burning anger came to the surface.

“And you have a lot of nerve killing MY FRIENDS!!!”

The abyss knew full well this was coming, more pain to feed from and more reason to pull power. Seth was resubsumed by the abyss, but he felt the tug of fatigue leave him be as he fell away. Even the abyss couldn’t keep up this constant turmoil. He just had to hope that this ended before… They all DIE!!!