A road turned to a shower of asphalt over an outmoded defensive line, a vain disposition turned to a fury directed at its nearest root cause, and a blade like a steel girder turned wide to sweep this menace away. Buster was charging with weight to match her opponent. The suit raked low, launched forward in kind, but its moves were a shadow of their former speed. Reverted to heavy clawed steps to tear through this road, as that massive blade came in. A doubled armed guard slammed up in the way, the deafening clang of metal on metal as they defeated each other with separate backing. The blade recoiling like a pinwheel in the wind, but that new momentum far from wasted. Her stance reversed, hand relinquishing and body spinning around from the opposite side to align that inertia to the fullest. That same recoil stymied a counter attack, only dispersing as her next attack came round. The suit formed a shoulder guard and side stepped in, freeing a hand to strike as the recoil pushed Buster back around. Another clang and recoil, but she did not spin in place. She leapt off the ground, let force swing clear like a seedpod in the wind. With a counter weight for a propeller.

Instead of Buster, the suit was now countering that blade coming back high. An unballed claw bracing and catching just short of the slicing tip. That arm bunched hard, palm slammed with everything put in and more. But the suit was pushed back just as hard, asphalt cut into ruts to keep their poise. The blade was stopped, but the damage still done. Despite his subsuming, his depth within, Seth could feel pain from his hand, a touch of cold from both metal and air. A drip of blood leaking out the side, trails run along contouring plates. Another outmoded defense.

Buster shifted to cleave her advantage, pressing hard against that bleeding hand. Her smile returned as she saw her success, but with the obvious taint of malice. The suit growled and pushed up, bringing the freed up right back into the fray, but could do little to strike out with so much blade to traverse. That bleeding claw slipped up the edge and pushed down hard as the other palm slammed the bottom in reversing fulcrum. The suit’s speed may have been reduced, but its strength was far from hampered. A heavy reverberating gong rang up the blade, and Buster was dragged along overhead, hands still retaining their grip on the handle. But despite her new orientation, she was not out of control. Counter rotations, weight shifting around, and her sword was pulled from out of the suit’s throw. Whirling around with overly trained precision, that titanic blade kicking dusted asphalt about as both were landed right without a step out of line.

The suit disregarded her outlandish reflexes and stanched Seth’s hand closed. The blade had broken through, but the threads had bunched up. Enough hold on the sides to stop it from cleaving the arm apart. The unneeded streetlights flickered as it pulled power and healed up the wounded flesh and metal. That same power starting up a softened glow in the eyes. But it was obvious it was drained beyond what a few lights could muster. Buster had the advantage, but it wasn’t so- *CRAck*

The suit turned its head in slow order toward that incredulous roadblock. Toward the idiot who had the audacity to try and shoot it in the back of the head! A single smoking rifle in the line made it clear. The left burned a little brighter in the now cowering soldier’s direction, but that distraction was all Buster needed. Another explosion of forward motion and sweeping return to form. The suit wasn’t unaware in its seeking glare and turned up another shoulder guard as she swept in from the right. It braced hard, poured that power into the leading plates, but before impact that blade spun. She’d held loose with one hand and whipped the blade like a roller with the other. All that weight fed a magnus effect as it scraped across that hardened guard. Climbing it with sparking spall, striking over and over till it caught the horns, and bashed all that momentum into the suit’s head.

The suit recoiled back, disorientated as the blade kicked off its head and rang Seth’s skull against itself. But Buster wasn’t done. She landed down off her leap, retook hold of her blade and redirected that momentum back over and at their rounding left. She swung away like a batter against the world’s heaviest baseball. A guard pulled through the haze forced through, feeting digging in as the sword struck home. Another clang of metal on metal, but the guard wasn’t going to be enough this time. Asphalt gave way and the suit was sent out end over end, shoulder skipping off the road and flipping over. A dragged claw stopped the tumble, more ruts dug into the gradually ruining road way. Skidding to a stop, the suit felt Seth’s pain, the sting of the blade again. A line cut in where it had tried to block, oozing blood and denatured gel alike. That damn blade wasn’t just dumb metal. Another pull of power to heal, the surrounding buildings flickering out, and a whine from- *CRACRACRACRA*.

An APC from the side, cannon opening up, plinking the suit hard with thirty millimeter shells. It turned and roared harshly against its fused maw as the cannon fire scattered over the helmet, a greater burn starting to grow in turn.

“STOP FIRING DAMNIT!!!”

The commander desperately yelled over the radio as the cannon ceased. The look of fear in him had dissipated as the fight looked to sway, he had something in mind that gave him back some hope. How pitifully sickening! The suit glared down the line, but turned back to its real opponent before she could start up another attack. Her demeanor shifting to smug understanding, she knew this plan as well. But all of this meant nothing as the suit burned on despite its fatigue. It flashed its claws, roared its disdain, and charged at her with all the speed it could wring out.

Buster had long since shifted back to an offensive stance, but shifted again to meet the suit head on. She stabbed ahead into its wide stance, but even as allowed as it was, the suit was far from open. It pulled to the side, let the whole left drag as that slab stabbed nothing but air. That trailing left pulled hard and ran down this over extended abhorrent excuse for a sword, sparking across its surface in suspiciously even intervals. Buster ducked back as that claw cleared and came for her face, the whole suit leaping up in the middle of her stance. A metal claw grazed her cheek, tearing a hair line cut. Her smug expression wavered only slightly in the light of that red glare. But she forgot about the tail!

It whipped around in her personal space, swiping its heavy metal limb around under her blade and into her gut. Buster was thrown back with the wind kicked out, feet staying under and rashing away the inertia. A hand held tight to her bruising abs. The suit completed its spin, staking down and rising up with a new found devilish pride. This wasn’t so one sided. But its slight celebration was cut short.

“FIRE!!!”

The commander had yelled over the radio again, but this time it was directed- *BOOOOOOM* at one of the tanks. It responded with another HEAT shell, thinking Seth was off his guard. The suit wasn’t. The pulse generator charged up again and fired in response, sending the shell spiraling past the head as it turned its burning red eye down the gunner’s sights, haloed by the round detonating on the already devastated roadway. That was their plan, distraction from both sides to allow for clear shots. Then it just had to stay as close to Buster as it could.

A claw stabbed the ground, underground wires exposed and ripped of their charge. Overused muscles and nerves cried in exhaustion, but this was no time to be slow. The burn in its eye intensifying before it immediately dropped lower and shot off toward Buster. Talons chewed through the asphalt as the suit snaked into range, opposite claw kept low to the ground for a massive upswing. Buster shifted off her cradling and brought her sword ahead, the pain in her gut causing her to wince out of reacting to counter the suit’s charge. But instead push and turn her blade out sideways, freed hand propping a-mid-sword, prepared to block for a change. The suit raked up the width of the blade, another sequential spark shower highlighting contact. The impromptu metal wall forced up, a clear line of attack created just for that asphalt trailing left, but that was short lived. Buster turned her blade down, traction from her backing hand pulling it down despite its momentum. And an advantage earned as the suit failed to upon its wrung out speed. This full rivaling weight brought to bear at last.

The suit received a face full of metal as that gap evaporated, Buster steamrolling into it like a linebacker, pushing it back before it could struggle for purchase. Armored feet skipping off the ground without staking as velocity increased. But this wasn’t a complete loss. The head was pressed to the green hued metal, close enough to feel it through the helmet, to hear it thrum. The sword was oscillating, vibrating rapidly in place. That was how it got through, that was how it could cut. Well not anymore! The oscillation had a source, the core of the blade like a magnetic heart, and the suit had a defibrillator.

Claws gripped the sides of the blade as it threatened complete inertial death, intent on catapulting it high and adding gravity to its enemies. Instead the suit regained stature and stabbed its talons down hard, breaking the both of them to a crawling stop and tearing through the road with callous disregard. Buster strained to get him unstuck, to get free of the suit's grip, but it was practically buried in the asphalt as they came to a grinding halt, right where it wanted to be. The pulse generator charged up again, the strength in Seth’s threading pulled out to fuel it. Helmet pulling back, horns arcing with electricity, and a forceful whip slamming it down onto this abomination of steel. The pulse loosed, stopped that oscillator dead, caused it to build up tension where it once released with rhythm, and set it against its wielder with callous intent. It lurched, rebounded all that weight against itself, against Buster, against everything. She received a face full of her own metal, was sent flying haphazardly without the control she'd flaunted prior. The suit received just as much, head snapped back by the out of control blade, but it could keep its ground. It hunched back over off the partial concussion, the energy expenditure getting the best of him, but it had the edge now.

The suit tensed, that eye burning up with a malicious masked grin. It stabbed into the ground again in a sprinter’s stance before the rut it had been locked in exploded. Claws trailed dusted road as they balled into fists. It pulled away strength again, localized the pulse to the right arm. Buster was off balance, her blade in a state like cardiac arrhythmia throwing it about under her grip. Only moments to wrangle her blade before the suit came in and struck it again. Another pulse released and slammed the blade back into her, kicking her back a few more feet. She flared her frustration, dug ruts of her own by heel, whipping that blade back behind her and tightening her grip to quiet its terminal heart. The suit pulled more power, more strength, charged up its arms to pulse one after the other. Buster’s massive weight shift stopped her momentum, but her face read like a roaring fire. The suit stared her down with dukes up and ready, Seth could feel himself smiling unconsciously. This just became an actual fight, and this abyss was way too excited.

The asphalt shattered in unison as both fighters exploded forward, rights locked to attack with wild abandon. Buster gripping tight with both hands, a multi swing combo set to carve him to ribbons. The suit tightening its fists to near armor cracking levels, pulses swirling around waiting for release. The first impact saw blade meet fist and expectation shatter. Both recoiled, armored fist cracking from the impact but refusing to be cut. The pulse a frame weaker, but still enough for the blade to lose its edge. But Buster was prepped for this now. She shifted the momentum like before, carried her blade over to strike from the other side, even as it writhed. As the suit launched its next attack in line. Edge met fist again with similar results, but the blade’s heart was losing rhythm concurrent, becoming too unstable for overblown grace. Buster countered, stabbed down to ground for a stable hold, but shifted her grip as the suit loosed its next hit. One thrown low, to counter each hit and kill that magnetic heart with a familiar resounding, manifesting tone. But the sword turned flat as Buster at last let go of the hilt.

The pulse fist struck flat metal and recoiled it without anything to stop it, as the rest of the weight seesawed into the suit. The hilt smacked the helm with all the force put in, rang in more concussion and knocking it low as Buster leapt after her sword. A forceful push back and down stuck it into the ground like a vaulting pole, her body scrunching up as tight as she could manage, and a lot of momentum pulling her around. Both feet aimed right at this rung aloud head. A double kick slamming into the side of the helmet and toppling the suit like a deposed statue. Not much comparable force, but enough to counter what was left of its concussed balance. Buster did her best to twist over off her kick, but her blade pulled her in odd directions and she tumbled back and on to the ground as well. Seth was dazed from the constant head trauma, but the suit was able to reorient quickly, flipping over and twisting up.

“FIRE!!!”

Another tank shot, a fat laden shell. The fight had brought them close to the bollards, but you shoot what you have regardless of blast radius and collateral damage. The burning eye flared as the suit whipped a pulse left in deflection. Tumbling it passed like all the rest but- *BOOOOOOOOOOOMMM* a little too close. The kick and heat crashed against the back, forced its way in and battered all it could. Everything nearly thrown forward as Seth’s ears bleed from the danger close pressure wave, and his back singed as metal overheated. The battlefield shrank as clouds of dust and soot choked it up. Buster only righted herself after the shell had passed, not wanting her head taken off. She winced off the blast wave as well, preferring to looking back in annoyance toward the tank that just gave her tinnitus. She whipped out her blade up, righting the oscillator and prepping for more.

The suit splayed out its claws in exacerbated menace, bending over and lurching forward. But its step was stymied by the striking of thirty millimeter shells from the right. They still shattered across his armor, but Seth’s worn body recoiled under the heavy hits. The suit was pulling too much strength, and Buster saw her chance, launching forward with her sword pointed ahead as the cannon died down. The suit presented a haphazard guard to the metal rain, but still caught sight of her advance. It pushed its guard out and shifted positions, sparking against the blade as it skewered passed. Buster kept running, swinging her blade back as she got distance and rounded on the left. Another burst of cannon fire stopped the suit from giving chase, shells showering over its turned back.

The suit tried to charge up a pulse, but the power was drained from everything around and it couldn't take everything from Seth or this wouldn’t be much of a fight. Buster sprinted up as the cannon ceased, locked and swung with just one hand seated, leaping in to catch the head as it rose off the cannon fire. The suit rose up, but quickly dropped its knees, horns skimming the blade as it ducked under it. It twisted and sparked, but followed her along as she shifted with her momentum, skidding to a new stop. Just as another burst of cannon fire opened up, but quickly fell silent. Two shells scattered over the armor, but no more… as the suit found a new power source.

The tank’s drive motors fell silent and sputtered, the APC’s autoloaders stopped dead, as did their engines. The electrically run turrets and gun drives, engine spark plugs, ancillary batteries, the fucking radios! The whole roadblock was sapped as the suit rose up, charged and ready to counter again. Its eyes flared at Buster, horns arced electricity, claws balled as it stomped down off its pull and stanced up to meet her attack. She gritted her teeth, but grim determination took hold quickly. She pulled her blade in tight on her hip, both hands holding it out in another skewer. She pressed her foot down and cracked the torn up asphalt. Her suit bunched, muscles tensing past their limit, she was going to finish this come what may. But her tension knew no longevity.

"YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

She exploded forward like she was charging a full battle line, road turned to rubble with every step. There was a metal clang under her roar, a tube filling and closing. But what mattered right now was catching that blade and tearing it free of her titanic grip once and for all. The suit shifted left, but left its right to sway as cap for Buster’s charging blade. And countered with similar cruel intent. A foot pushed into the asphalt, shoved the left into the flat of the blade but held the pulse. Once in, it clamped its right over the still slicing top and loosed that pulse without discrimination. The blade kicked in, punched Buster in the kidney with handle held for dear life. Like a shot put, she was swung about, tossed to her destination like so many before. Her grip too strong to break even with odd angle and stunning force, but throwing her around was good enough for- *BOOOOOOOOM*

The suit turned with its shot put, left eye looking out from its slit as perception reared its grim head… As a HEAT shell came flying at it. It was in the same spot as before, the tank not needing to move, just wait for his head to reenter its sights. The eye flared as it realized there wasn’t time to charge a new pulse, or dodge out of the way, or… anything. All it could do was shut that eye as hard as it could and brace with every fiber of both their beings.

The metal rod out in front of the shell slammed and smooshed against the armor, splaying into friction heated spalling. The armor rippling in concentric waves, but refusing to crack. But that was just the detonator. The fuse blew in millionths of a second, setting off the concave cone that made up the main charge. It burst in fiery destruction, but the cone shape directed the blast at the sole point of contact… at Seth’s eye. A jet-like explosion disintegrated the detonator rod, melting it away with a copper jet of molten death. The outer layer of armor began to scour away, the aluminum and ark metal blend not meant for protection. The conductive main layer, its crystalline metal melted to slag, the weakened threading and siphoned off structure losing out over the mass molten jet of copper. The explosion pushed the melt away as it reached the ferroceramic. Clay burning and cracking as it should, absorbing the blast. But it had no hope against such militarized ordinance. The scorched plate was scoured away, the molten copper jet dissipated with it. The gel layer went next, boiling under the explosive force and instant heat. So all that was left was…

The explosion smashed over Seth’s head, a cloud of fire and smoke consuming the whole blasted road. Buster, the commander, the soldiers on the line, they all held their breath as the shadow beneath, the metal body less obscured, bent in almighty recoil. It inched over, following the explosive push imparted upon it in slowed material fashion. Every eye locked in anxious terror, ears ringing the scene to silence, hope burgeoning that this nightmare was over. But that hope died as the right foot racked to stop the fall back, scathing talons hard into the indistinguishable roadway. The smoke drifted, dissipated, and a vision of the damage flashed before everyone’s eyes. The armor was holed in a wide space over the eye, layer after layer burned away and blackened. But the skin under… Destroyed beyond definition. Char and burn matched between surviving metal and debatable flesh. The only signifier it was even there in that void was the glowing cracks that crossed the hole. Cracks that spread a little too far. But in that barely resolved moment of vision… true terror was realized… As that eye reopened.

It burned… everything burned. Fire and melt seeped between suit and skin, broiling flesh and igniting bone. He couldn’t breathe, burn charring down his throat. He couldn’t move, muscle filled with wanton shrapnel and cooked to charcoal. Nerves tried to die quickly, concussion near total and splintering what it could to spare him, to stymy the suffering, to end him in greymatter death. But he could still feel... everything. Snapping and popping accentuated this hell, bones turned to kindling across every path. He struggled to grab at power, at anything. He had to heal, he had to stop this agony! But he couldn’t. It wouldn’t let him! The pain fed the abyss what it wanted. His fury, his resentment, his malice, his wrath. And it was glutted like never before. He hated them, wanted them to burn as he was, wanted nothing but to tear them apart down to the very essence of who they were.

That eye roared to brilliance like before, a red star burning through the lingering cordite and smoking flesh pouring from every edge of the suit. It turned his body, denied him everything, and faced their new target regretting this life. It hunched off the turn, his body racked unimaginable and suffocating in exhaustion, but that didn’t matter. Power was drawn up, strength pulled completely away. The armor began to repair the damage, invisible threads snatching blasted remnants from the air and fusing them into their rightful place, their rightful shape. Flesh returning but the pain baked in too deep to cut out.

The defensive line watched in horror as all the damage they ever managed to do was disappearing before their eyes. Before the helmet snapping open, jagged edges coming apart in another abyssal maw, electricity arced between the edges. That oozing red glow emanating from that insatiable empty void, a charging whir echoing from all sides. The burn on the eye flaring as the last of the armor puzzle pieced back in place, closed slit amplifying its luminance for all to know this fear. The soldiers couldn’t move, they knew this was the end but they couldn’t run, couldn’t will themselves flee. All they could do was watch as death came about- *CCCCRREEEEEEEEENNNN* for Seth.

The sound of metal rend, a sharp spreading of new pain, a sudden involuntary shift up, and the dissipation of that monstrous whir. Replaced by the thrum of oscillating metal filling the void. Buster had seen her chance, Seth’s wrath had consumed the suit’s focus and left them vulnerable. She’d dashed into the smoke and dust that clouded the battlefield and came about on him, blade set to skewer into his back and hopefully disrupt his charge up. She launched herself with no time for regard, stabbing with all the strength she had. But where armor had slowed and stymied her previous attacks, it now presented no resistance. The vibrating blade slicing and pushing aside threads spread too thin and waning away, the abyss taking everything it could. Layer after layer sliced open as the blade carved through with its constant frequency. Metal split with little resistance, what ceramic remained turned to dust, gel blasted away in the vibratory cacophony. Then the blade skewered flesh… and kept going. Through bone and artery, pipe and stomach, finally coming out the other end of his sternum. It sliced through the other side and out, only grinding to a halt when nearly half the blade was impaled through and when Seth was finally returned to this world in full.

Like a popped balloon releasing the air it once held, the abyss had relinquished its hold on its dying host. Seth was free of its obfuscation, its overriding control, its swallowing void, but what he came back to was nothing but that feast of anguish made whole. The burning flesh, the totaled strength, the stinging intrusion of cold thrumming steel. His mind freed in totality, no memory of what had happened, what he’d done. All he could feel... was the approach of death yet again.

Blood came up every time he tried to breathe, each unconscious action eliciting a deep prang in his chest, as the gravity of this intrusion made itself abhorrently clear. His heart beat in desperate fashion, but every cycle tore it against the blade that bifurcated it. Blood and acid pooled and pressed down on his diaphragm, a spreading cold inching with every beat and a sickening bottomless pit coloring this fully realized hell. He tried to focus, to look down at his wound. The helmet shut its maw and fused, but before he could look down at the boiling stain refused by that blade through his chest, his balance gave out. His legs stumbled him forward, and a tenuous grip from behind finally released. Buster had still been holding her blade to the last, the oscillating hum ceasing as her grip fell away, as Seth’s knees gave out. As all the weight he carried aloft now came crashing down to the devastated asphalt below. The lower layers cracked and a wave of dust kicked up. He tried to lift his hand to the blade, a last grasp at saving himself. But it was stuck fast, the stopped oscillation fusing it to his suit and sealing it tight. His vision grew dark at the edges. Not that subsuming void by an emptying, his blood was draining away from where it was needed, his lungs collapsing under their own weight, his breath unable to even catch. Only suffocate. More of his body fell numb with every passing second, fell cold and empty. But his vision filled the void regardless.

His life flowed in reverse before his eyes, like an out of control slide show. The last vestiges of his mind desperate to survive as the air turned hollow. He saw his fights, his fury, his hope, his mom. He saw his new friends fly by, his struggles disappear. He saw his career come and go, his life at the orphanage. He followed his steps through the hell of the crisis, past all the horrors he’d experienced. He saw his family disappear in the blink of an eye again. But… then he saw his life before.

His parents teaching him about other cultures with stupid tacky calendars covered in heroes he liked. His birthdays eating cinnamon waffles his dad made different each time so he’d remember each one. His parents trying their hardest to teach him things he seemed to forget almost immediately. He saw his old friends, his old neighbors giving him candy and presents just so he’d remember their names. He saw himself wake up with barely any understanding of what happened the previous day, but a fresh imagination of what his emotions held tight to. He saw his parents dread what would become of their son, but do their damnedest to lift him up and help him remember at least something.

He saw it all like he’d always had those memories, but never realized they were there. Yet they passed and faded as his vision blackened further. As his thoughts died away, as his feelings dimmed down to not even numb. His strength finally fell away completely, desperate hand falling limp as he fell to the ground. The sword angling his fall to the side, dropping him to the asphalt black dust below. A last gasp of his consciousness drove him to reach out, toward home… Toward rest. But that gasp realized he had it already, he had his rest right here. Even if it was the cold void he had raged against. It was quiet, peaceful. At long last it had what it wanted, for this day to end and to just disappear. And that candle extinguished to its last ember.

The suit fell limp all at once, a burst of dust and force signaling the release of all the energy Seth had left in him. A pitiful kick up, but the message was clear. The soldiers and Buster all looked on, too hesitant to check and make sure it was over. But this was it, this was the end. Seth was dead…

To the world.