“Heroes!! Supers!! Survivors and sufferers of a crisis thought ended!!”

The gathered army never broke its lock, all eyes on Seth, but all ears tuned to the tempered boom of Erdwut pulling back their resolve with a renewed, demanding vigor.

“A crisis that we all share in!! A crisis we all bear the scars of!! A crisis that should have stayed dead and buried and yet is kept high in all minds as our shining achievement!! Our standard to aspire to!!”

Grips tightened, handles and fists bore the brunt of burning fear turned to focus.

“But none who stand here today see that façade as such!! None sing the praises of those terrible days with earnest pride in their hearts!! They…! We know that that was not what was fought for!!”

Seth kept his smirk, but even he started to feel the rouse from Erdwut’s sudden verbose admission. Even if it was all pointed straight at him.

“We fought for all those who couldn’t!! We sacrificed to give them back their safe and happy lives!! We bled to give them this bright and happy future!! But now that creed is lost!!!”

“So long as this thing draws breath!!!”

A sudden shift in the air and those collective glares turned almost feral. Teeth gritted, stances shifted to all out aggression, powers flared across every spectrum. And that smile lost a slight degree.

“League!!! The crisis is not yet over!! Our fight has not yet been won!! Our great achievement stands hollow and our sacrifices lay in vain!!”

The glares turned visible as the firing positions finally lit up their arms. Targeting lasers, spooling barrels, taut bowstrings, and all manner of scopes and crosshairs.

“Today!! We must put right our tally!! We must close this horrid chapter!! We must admit our folly and rectify it with extreme prejudice!!

“We must accept… that we missed one!! And end this malignant terror…”

“Once and for ALL!!!”

The lines erupted, yells of war to try and break what was fragile among their enemy. To prove their desire to crush them to dust. To prove to themselves that they wanted nothing but their enemy’s death. But all of it struck mute, even as Erdwut pointed his empty hilt straight into the air, like the starting flag of a race to hell. The guard glowing with its tethered heat, the will inside gathering back its true form. The yells desired for its gleaming return, for it to fall on their target to signal their release and to bring this wait to its rightful end. And so it fell, the blade of that true Eschenwald released and returning in its smooth pure edge. A unison tension, triggers pressed and ground cracked, weapons locked and powers crescendoed, all of the League’s brought together might set upon one target painted by the crowning edge of that perfect gleam. But all of it… was fucking pointless!

*BRRFWPTCRAKCRAKZAPFWOSHAKGRAAAAAAAHAHHHHHHH*

The storm loosed as a tidal wave, the froth of lead preceded only by supersonic arrows breaking the ground ahead of the crunch. The dusty crater turned to mulch as rounds tore through it from both sides, clouds of dust and debris coloring and obscuring the wake. Energies of all shades and textures traced and fried the clouds, a rainbow of elements fell upon that hated center. The lines released, the circle closed as the massed firepower withered their accursed target away. Their yells lost in the cacophony and their colors muddled by their own kicked up dust. But their target was lost as well. Only vague shape caught against backing misses and through fried portholes. But all of it… too fast to follow.

Seth’s world was a speed dimmed blur, bullets and arrows filing the air. Beams and rocks and constrained flames cut through his dance floor, talons scathing over it and moving him from one density to another. A spray from that minigun cut through as three supersonic arrows screamed at him for ducking between them. Magnetic pylons stabbed the ground, tried to box him in as he weaved and slithered between a radiation beam and a burst of rainbow fire. But no force held them as they snapped apart, true body sweeping through them under a solar ray. But there was only so much dodging he could do… or cared to do.

An explosive volley, coordinated sight clearing, slow moving targets. A swivel through another arrow volley and a burst of punches crunched their fuses and destroyed their momentum. And still set them off. The cloud exploded in on itself as another supersonic arrow tried to cut through it, straight into Seth’s hand. Heavy, metallic, loaded for bear, and immediately darted into the ground to throw away its utility. A spattering of debris buffeted the front line charging in from one side as an arm guard cut the edge from a burst of gunfire. Scales turning the lead to spalling, a true replacement for that tainted armor. A brace of rocks and metal spheres shattered upon clawed fists as they tried to cut in, friction melted shards and more dust for the cloud. More shrapnel raining over that leading edge, but their disregard was terminal. A freezing beam of lathed away at open air as that radioactive idiot tried again to boil Seth in his own skin. This dance was getting annoying, but at least he had some partners getting into step.

The hail ceased as the first sharp edge broke through the clouding curtain, a spear point raked by golden arcs.

‘Such poor manners!!’

A clawed fist shattered it down the heft as momentums met, and the ingrate who thought he could use electricity in this fight was socked one. The cloud was parted violently by his twirling body, the line recoiled on one side, but this dance floor was a true ballroom now. A singing blade skimmed over Seth’s back as dropped a knee in step, a hammer brought down met an unyielding palm as its golf swing failed to follow through. Back met body as Seth kicked up from the ground, other arm wrapping around the handle of another relieved weapon. Trained steel glanced off the block as it was kicked up in line, the other talon pulling Seth back down. The ground exploded back at the disarmed flank behind as he launched low and swirled around with this hammer in wide. It extended and caught a shield edge on as it rounded over, above another spear point set to stick it to him. Straps and metal rent in kind. A burst of braking force addled dust and the hammer was passed between hands to flatten that hoplite’s point into the ground. A swift talon snapped his borrowed handle from its weight and freed it up for offense. A claw swinging it head level as a staff tried to do the same. Its wielder missed by a mile but found a talon on her chest and the other claw on her staff. Seth kicked off and sent her into her flank’s second line, already one down with a splintered handle spiraling off another head in parallel.

A second line of fists and power tried to push through the disarmed, right into a hammer weight fulcrumed chinward by a dropped knee and that relieved staff. Another’s feet swept out from under them by that tail spun about. Talons scratched up the floor some more, weaving Seth under a flying kick and up to guard a wire laden fist. A guard that wrapped around and tossed its drained arrogant into another chest trying to strike at Seth’s back.

‘They’ll never learn huh?’

The clouds billowed and roiled with muscle and metal, flashed with power from all sides. The lines stalled as the expected crunch was mitigated, so many combatants for just one target. The occasional body flying out followed by any number of weapons, or remnants thereof, kept the reserve busy and their heads down. But the massed numbers served a more set purpose, to keep Seth in one place. Aegis gritted as she advanced, the splinter of a relieved bo staff thunking hollow between her and Erdwut’s purpose laden scowl. An image ran in her head, a shape to form, a shape to trap and end. The Elite matched Erd’s scowl, but some bore more raucous fervor over that eventual end. Samurai had already used his moment, and Maglev was just flat out denied his contribution, Hothead cracked his knuckles as they flamed out under his igniting vengeful expression. With little more than an acknowledging turn of his wildly contorting glare, Kineticlysm rocketed into the fray like he was the closing act. An act that deepened Aegis’ grit and winced her held off apprehension. Her part to play was the hardest to stomach.

A wave of way too in unison fists was swept aside as his tail whipped Seth back right side up, talons already grinding through the churn to turn him to face yet more dancers. But all he turned to was a feint shadowy cloud adding presence but little else. A pair of glowing eyes scowling at him as they disappeared into the dust, as his dance floor emptied a little too suddenly. The air rumbling and a pronounced glare at his back of almost disturbing intensity told him they were all making space for a clumsy dancer prone to stepping on toes, on fucking purpose! The cloud roiled away in rippling escape as he locked a guard directed at the wild man flinging himself toward him, outfit more akin to an escaped prisoner than a…

‘Wait!! Shit!! That’s Kineticlysm?!?’

The guard slammed to double, talons staked down hard, and Seth braced with every thread of his accepted being as a fist laden with who fucking knows how much stored up energy tore through the air apart. The clouds, keeping his floor in line, fled in fear before his fist even made contact. Its force already released like he’d barely trained his restraint in the slightest. A wave of air tried to stay its place, but only succeeded in bunching up and cracking apart as contact finally came. The crater clouded for the nearest second as all the air ran for its personified life, all its stored water squeezed out and boiled in an instant, the last of the dusted roadway carried with it. Force tore the opposite side asunder in shadowed limit, decimated what was left of the buildings not covered. A bomb of raw energy released at point blank, with an equal reaction expected across an absolutely ecstatic catharsis now flying away off of his own attack. The dance floor was emptied, splintered, and wholesale boomed.

The recipient of all this raucous release felt the sum total of it all, a lucky break to still be able to feel. Bones still a little more than dust and splinters, scales ripped and cracked on his leading edge, yet the sting of healing realigning bone told him enough. And only a few feet of rut were torn into the bedrock exposed. But an odd stillness came over Seth as he felt his forearms resolidify. A stillness he could only respond to with hesitation. A presence he’d expected at some point, but this felt worse than it should. The guard flung open, arms returned to his sides whole, but eyes not meeting across equal perception. Only an opposite set of arms forcing themselves down, a gritted face shadowed by wind loosened hair, and an orange barrier falling between them with no hesitation afforded.

Seth felt that ingrained comfort again, an odd feeling since it kept happening in the worst situations. But this orange field of translucent energy just kept having an effect on him. A safe feeling, a grounding, a reminder that pulled him out of the wreckage of too many lives. Now though… it seemed less inclined to spare him. Not that his life wasn’t in an absolute state of “shouldn’t be standing” but… the force behind this protective barrier and its shape held a very different message for him. It towered high, a bulbous cylinder that tapered slightly into a recessed flat top. One full of holes. Seth realized quickly, the air movements shifted when the field came down. Aegis had learned to change her filter, he was in a glass jar with a lid poked full of air holes. But the shape was too specific, the base was wide and still changing. Tubes were stretching out from four sides, more perforated walls set in as they extended out toward four all too similar heroes. Hothead the most obvious tell of this planned end, the other three fire supers only cement around the brick. He was in a blast furnace, and in the center of an all too callous need to burn him alive.

Aegis’ grit finally had its truth expressed, if there had been another way she would have taken and demanded it. But she was the only one who could stop him, the only one that could lock him down, the only one who could see this through to the end. Her grit finally broke down as the inevitable weighed too hard upon her, a single phrase all she could muster through the thrice spurned hope.

“I’m sorry.”

But despite the dire arrangement, that inevitable conclusion that had to occur, Seth’s changed face had held no malice. That red eye never resurfaced, true fury held short, no blood had been spilt nor death finalized. A field of weapons, broken and disarmed, surrounded both, but not a bone was broken nor true damage done. Attacks stopped with nothing but pride as the casualty. Despite the fact that all who had come wanting this, wanting what should be his true death. Burned to ash and dusted like all the others that had suffered before him. Despite everything that should drive him to yell out and defy, to rage against this end and struggle with every fiber of whatever being he was now. Despite all of that, those eyes were calm beyond their stellar disparity, that beast before them was as related as it could ever have been seen, and that maw was smiling down on-

“No Dana…”

A few eyes and ears flinched as it opened, voice completely the same as it had been despite the new anatomy. But the brightest reaction came from its sole target.

“I’m sorry.”

Aegis’ eyes were wide, stuck staring at the obliterated ground before her in shame of what was needed, as a name… her name was said by something that shouldn’t even know it. Few even cared to use it if they even knew it at all. But… But… But that list intersected with the reality before her at only one point. One that threw this world into her own grim slowness… As he took a step toward her without a care for what was ahead.

All eyes but those two watched him approach that impenetrable wall of hope and energy, one that had stopped all of his kind before and turned their strength and ferocity to nothing. Those spare two inching up with the only understanding of what was coming. The only shred of horror at what was oncoming. But of course Hothead had to make this his moment, as he flared his hands for the expected final cook off and as the gathered heroes regained their unsuspecting denial.

“Hey, didn’t they tell you it’s rude to tap on the glass!”

Another step landed without so much as a waver as the horns approached undaunted.

“Why don’t you just die with…!”

Those horns rippled the barrier like it was the surface of a placid pond… and passed through like it was never there.

“some…”

The maw passed through, head never flinching, blue lit hazel eyes kept open without even the slightest hint they were under threat.

“d…d-d-d-Dah!!”

A last grand step pulled him through in totality, no resistance, no push against, no rebuking force. Little more than air where vaunted invulnerability once stood. All those eyes watching counter turned wider than fear, wider than horror could drive them to be. All watching could no longer deny what was happening before them. All of those who gathered together to end this thing once and for all now saw it slip through their impenetrable trap like it was not even there. The shock and awe of just a few steps taken was tearing worlds apart, breaking the only hope left to their collective revenge. That last set of eyes turned up to look that living reality in the snouted face, at the gentle smile he wore as his tail slipped free of her demanded purpose in life. A shattered look was all that could be mustered opposite as she looked up… as she was reminded of her original charge with all too much poignancy. As her grand power was disregarded, as emphatic choices were rendered mistakes tenfold, as her own memories failed her duty and renewed her guilt upon that gentle smile. And sank to horror as it turned to a smirk and bore those teeth to the sea of expectations denied. A simple message written in the flash it took for it to freeze the world solid.

“My Turn!”

Synced perceptions finally broke as the exposed bedrock below exploded and that wanton reality loosed itself, no longer bound by anything. Or anyone!! A streak of atomized crater slammed into the building providing firing positions, a wall disappearing before the myriad of trained perceptions could even realize. Noone even had time to react before both stories shattered upward like the ground no longer wanted to carry it. Bodies thrown high with their position were doubly flung as that streaking force blue shifted and slammed all of them before the debris could even start to fly. The last ricochet, haloed by tearing air escaping it, blasted that blue blur back to earth, right into the crowded line behind Aegis. The incline atomized in a wave of cries masked by the aerosolized ground, velocity too much for even the sound to travel in time. Recoils were slowed, perceptions desperate to catch up, but that blur did not give any concessions.

Steaks careened through the line, slamming into heroes too slow to realize, only followed just barely by the only one who could gain any parity. But all it won Aegis was a powerless front row seat, as that blurred form kicked off of a redrawing Blade Tone with force enough to cave a bunker. Parity gained and resolving, streaks turned to scales and she finally caught up to the lightning wreathed Seth flying roundhouse kicking Maglev in his unexpectedly cowering, horrified face. Body contorting, crumpling ,and disappearing from her parity. Disappearing into a blue blur all his own, directed straight at the opposite building bearing more gunners and archers. The structure exploded like it had been struck by a lateral meteor, but ignited in that same plasma electric chain that traced through the debris to every body tossed about like toys. A taloned foot glassed the dust beneath as it killed the momentum it still had, but that unbound reality was far from done.

The world was nearly in total standstill, velocity of mind even outpacing velocity of movement. Plenty of trained perceptions were breaking the landscape amongst their slower compatriots, but all of it was utterly outclassed and utterly outgunned. Seth was in overdrive, power amplifying everything to a degree he could barely make sense of, and maybe pushing it a little too high. But he still understood just what he was and what had to be done to end this. Even if it was a little overboard. The scene speed back up, perception managed and contained so at the very least this wasn’t just pure slaughter. That baking talon on the ground pulled him down and locked, there were plenty more heroes to kick the shit out of! That lock released and more ground was destroyed as he slammed into the lineups finally acting upon his rampage. If only for show.

Seth streaked across the crater, lightning wisping off of him like excess steam from a broiling pot. Another talon stopped him dead in front of the super that was hurling rocks at him before, a few forming from the crater around his hands. His feet suddenly stopped touching the ground as a kick spun his whole world sideways, and a plasma coated fist came down on his rocky barely formed guard. He crunched into the ground and was alone before he could even express the pain he was just imparted. Another ranged super, the radiation thrower, suit no more than a hazmat knockoff. He was hovering too low and not trained enough to keep up as the ground ahead of him exploded and both taloned feet pressed into his chest and lined him up. A flash of supreme disapproval was all he got before being launched into the rubble of the destroyed gunnery position, but not without his own blue streak. Phoenix Tech, apparently more trained in this regard, was already jetting in to intercept the opposite reaction locked Seth. But speed like his was disadvantageous without control. A twist, a claw wrapping around an extended arm trying to light him on fire, and Seth was on his back and shifting his jets before he could cut them. A rainbow flaring missile crashed to the ground with a little extra push down, and a nice standard fist locked in as Seth was gently catapulted toward Hothead still unable to handle reality. A summery subsonic conking brought his denial to an end, if at least to just a well-deserved bout of unconsciousness.

‘Guy really needs to learn not to be such a jackass all the time.’

A terse moment of hesitation allowed the heroes their chance to reacquire Seth again as he slowed his overdrive over Hothead’s crumpling body, and alongside the catastrophe that was Erdwut. An image rendered to complete dust, a defense he’d relied on and demanded made out to be nothing at all. His wrath was boiling, Eschenwald rippling erratically, his eyes burned at Seth’s almost smug visage, but his hesitation was insurmountable. Something in him was wholly and truly broken. Pride possibly? Seth couldn’t really parse it. But then again he did hold off this moment a little too long, maybe he was just overloaded. But his hesitation still waned regardless, muscles tightening and stance pulling toward him. Though not quite because of his reforming resolve, or the dismissive shrug Seth gave to reignite his ire. It was because Kineticlysm was making his presence known again, air roiling and distant dust cloud outpacing its shock wave. The world slowed back down under Seth’s mounting drive, and yet another message written on his face.

“As if this fight was over already.”

Simultaneous reactions converged on him from all sides, but the pressing demand of the living bomb about to smack him in the face certainly took precedent, if not refutation. A talon hopped him sideways and obliterated the bedrock, the opposite knee lining up on Kinetic’s gut as his attack suddenly had nothing to hit. That upward knee cut the wind from him and kicked him skyward before he could add a few more feet to the crater depth. Necessary collateral damage reduction out of the way, the drive slowed and a bit more of an even playing field was put forth. With a few returning players even. Swords swung away at him yet again, trained steel from Makani Samurai and the ever telling Eschenwald from Erdwut. But this time their speed was much more respecting. Though Samurai presented more of an issue than Erdwut.

The sandwiching blades sliced empty air as a talon finally touched down, dashing Seth as deep into Samurai’s stance as he could get. Close enough to feel the ire coming off of him that he’d not really noticed till now. More betrayal than pure wrath. An unfortunate reality he didn’t have time to reconcile as Samurai followed through faster than respectable. Horns were dulled as Seth ducked for his life and twisted back up, blade already turned back to slice his head off. A claw parried, trained steel was thrown high out of the one hand bearing it, the other already stabbing the holdout blade underneath. The other palm accepted the pain carried in it, steel stabbing through scale and bone with no resistance. Feeling the loss his true form had dredged up and made all too close. That bleeding claw slowly wrapped over the guard, and a brief silent acceptance of his condemnation was had. But Seth wasn’t going to die from it, determined eyes paying for the blade taken from its owner.

Samurai seemed to wince in understanding, his disarming a poignant notion. He dodged back, a begrudging trade for the moment spared, and to clear a path for Eschenwald. Seth ducked again, true blade searing the air above him as the trained holdout was removed from his hand. A moment of set messaging, that holdout was stabbed into the ground as Erdwut cut his failed inertia. Another taloned foot finalized that holdout’s end in this fight, burying it deeper and locking Seth on top of it, as the main blade glinted in its downward path above. Erdwut sliced down on yet more empty space as his prey refuted him again, momentum too much to stop before gleaming edge buried itself in exposed bedrock. Another moment’s wrathful hesitation was all the time needed, as that skyward blade flashed down through Eschenwald’s. Samurai’s sword harpooning through like the spear of a god, locked the blade down in its chosen bed, probably startled that will controlling it. That reburgeoning wrath tried to defy its disarming, but a curled talon spinning down quieted that struggle to keep this going. Erdwut was kicked square across the jaw, another summery lights out for another too dangerous for other’s own good. Seth landed down with another scathing talon slowing his spin as Erd crinkled off his stuck handle, grip too iron to be sent flying. Just adding a dislocated shoulder to the jaw.

The remainder of this routed formation finally found footing to at least see the one breaking them apart, and see the devastation surrounding them. So many glares retensing the air, trying to raise back up their collective resolve, only disturbed by the sound of-

“AHy YeAH AAHH” *CRAKRacrac*

Kineticlysm slamming down into a rubbled building. So at least he was out of the picture as well, hopefully for- *BWWAKkk*

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOUR FLINGING!!!”

“Hugghh” ‘Fine then! Let’s end this already!’

The world was awash, waves beating against broken resolve, forcing a powerless weight onto Aegis’ back. The bedrock rippled beneath her knees, the frightened air tousled her hair out of the disregarded tie, radiant heat singed from odd angles, cold bursts pricked at her, hairs stood up and fell as electricity ebbed and flowed. But nothing could break what was already broken. Her stare was locked straight ahead, at the clean cut circle indented into the center of the crater. A line crossed that should never have been possible to. But there it was… and there it blared at her with every excess wave of force applied. The world around her blurred, but the streak of blue persisted, circled around her like a shark cutting through a school of fish. Hunting, tearing them away one at a time.

Ahead of her the moment played on repeat, that line crossed over and over, a mistake years in the making burning guilt into her unlike she’d ever felt before. A guilt that flared with every hit and discharge from that cruel streak. Each hit more lethal than the last. Her mind was spiraling, protecting her from seeing what was happening to her fellow heroes but constantly visualizing what those forces were doing to them. Things she was all too familiar with. Bones shattering, flesh tearing, limbs crunching, organs rupturing and painting this chosen field. But the worst of it… the worst feeling in the world right now… was seeing Seth’s smiling face. His old muted relief at telling her his truth and forcing her to bear it. At all but admitting to being the monster he was now.

That streak slammed high, danced amid a rainbow of elemental attacks as that boy stared Aegis in the face. Demanded her to remember what she’d set in motion. She’d told him her only weakness, allowed him to break an invulnerable barrier her entire image had been set in. That the Elite’s entire image had been steeped in. That people had put all of their trust in, that this city relied on when the worst this world had to offer fell upon it. All of that was shattered by a few fucking steps forward. And now those footprints were being filled in by the blood of heroes.

But… for some reason… a small pang of relief awakened beneath it all. A disgusting, unpalatable relief, but one that Aegis had hoped for. For far too long. A chance to be recognized for more than just her shields, for more than just her passed down power. For more than what others had told her she was good at. It rose up higher from the flaring guilt, but only added to the spiraling madness hitting her mind. She couldn’t stand that she felt this way, that her buried hope was allowed up through something like this. It forced her head down, her eyes closed, the world away for just the one moment she needed to stop the pain… but a quiet moment was already upon her. The waves had stopped, the elements stymied, the ground still, save for two beats that struck close by. She opened her eyes to the ground ahead of her, that burned in line still demanding attention. But no hallucinated memory accompanied, now the truth was stood before her. Back facing, talons etching bedrock, scales shifting over closing wounds, tail draping and keeping calm. And hazel slit eyes looking out over the crater that they had made and filled with his enemies. Eyes that shifted back, and fell upon her over that damnable flat smile.

“Why…?”

A question was all Seth got in return. One drenched in venom and nitrous, liable to explode and tear any reason away if not addressed to satisfaction. Though, this was a little expected. You can’t leave the truth under wraps for so long and expect for understanding, least of all from the only other one who knew what was hidden beneath. The glare up at him was the same one she gave him before, when his mind wasn’t just his and her pleas were lost because of a single word. And a lot of bodily trauma and… Okay even Seth regretted his facetious nature. That smile wavered into a sigh that bore more than Aegis could know, there is a lot of time for self-reflection when your brain is still coming off of overdrive. But in the end, there was little to reflect on… since all he really did was admit a whole truth for once.

“You… want the long version or the short version? Because I don’t think-“

“WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO ALL OF THIS!?!”

The air around her fled, the scorned tone burning it into flight and washing it over him like yet another disregarded warning. But her fury was lost as well, shattered along with everything else. Falling under the weight of it all and getting snuffed out into despair.

“Why the hell would you leave me to watch all this…?”

Seth was taken aback.

“Why the hell would I even want to fight you? That’s literally the one thing I would never do, remember. Possibilities or something. I mean that’s why I used your shield as a gong during… hhugh…”

He shook his head to fight his making light of another heavy situation.

“I mean… it just doesn’t feel right to fight you after dropping this on you like this. Besides… You actually know me unlike these guys. We’re friends.”

That snuffed fury roared back to life, now the ground was trying to flee, rippling like Aegis’ heartbeat was tearing into it.

“You… still think we’re FRIENDS!!! After all of this!!! After all the destruction you caused!!! After all of this DEATH!!!”

The air was alight, burning glare not so metaphorical, the orange flare in her eyes wanting nothing but to bifurcate the hell out of him with as many slicing shields as she could muster, no matter how futile it really was. But it all fell upon light realization rather than disappointment. Washing over him as yet another reminder that he’d over done it again… but the consequences weren’t as dire as she believed.

“W-wait? I did everything I could to keep people alive today! Why the hell would anybody be dead!?”

That burn distorted, contorted as if both annoyed to beyond words and furious it has to be spelled out to the one who stocked this abhorrent fury.

“You… LOOK AROUND YOU!!! LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!! LOO-“

But that fury had directed its ire to the world around it at last, allowing Aegis to finally see what had really happened. Her comrades were far from dead, far from defeated in this war. The battle sure, but not the war. Bodies groaned across the crater, held arms and guts, soothed legs and joints, or just laid where they fell in unconscious heaps. Not a drop of blood spilled upon the cleared bedrock and asphalt strata, save maybe for the bloodied nose here and there. Even the rubbled buildings that used to hold gunners and archers were far from a grave, the few able to walk stumbling out with nothing but internalized pain. And that was what stymied this continued war. Not one of the heroes even left standing on their own two feet could put up a fight again. No bodily injury kept them at bay, broke their stride, or curtailed their retaliation. Simply the unhealed pain of what could have been. The Garkah taught Seth to heal wounds, but the pain was still harder to counter.

Aegis thought back to the blue streak, the wreath that followed Seth as he tore through the lines of heroes. The same streak that chained through them. She turned back, ears full of their pained grumbles, contorted fury dissolving from paradox after paradox. All she turned back to was that same gentle smile across that abhorrent maw.

“W-wha…? How…?”

“Like I said… you want the long or the short version. Though again, the long version might be a hard sell. These guys are beat to shit but you and I both know that won’t last very long.”

The stun on her face just wouldn’t relent, too much coming too fast. An emotional rollercoaster that decided to break just short of every point. Nothing made sense.

“What… what the hell was all of this then!?”

The smile flattened hard as Seth looked around at his handy work, special attention to the buried Kineticlysm struggling to build up more energy to free himself, and the borrowed bit of fabric he stuffed in his mouth. He turned back down to Aegis’ broken confusion and shrugged as if it were-

“Just… something that had to happen in the end. If I had kept up this lie for longer than I did, things would have gotten a lot worse. A… whole lot worse. It's… hggrrr… It's really hard to explain. Lets just say you were right all along and I’ve been fighting myself a lot. Though… you probably saw that before… Hgguuggh! Fucking hate this but I don’t have time.”

A claw rubbed the hair still definitely spiking over his head, the flattened smile turning guilty and killing the image of the scaled horror that towered over its last foe. Only marginal realization reassembled that broken confusion, too many pieces were still scattered to the winds to put back the whole. But a few pieces still helped ease the fury down and put away its fueling despair. But he couldn’t with the confession.

“I… I admit I’m never good at keeping things contained and easy. I overdo things… a lot! I go overboard when the situation calls for more subtlety and can’t fully grasp everything I’m capable of. But… But this had to happen at some point. This- All of this, had to happen. It… it was the only way to start making things right. And put the demon everyone thought I was to rest… or at least get one part of it straight. That it caused you this much pain is…”

That towering horror slumped like it had just been caught stealing a cookie. Guilt falling on him far harder than this entire army had.

“I’m… sorry… I’m pretty selfish aren’t I? I should have just told you when the course started, probably should have done a lot more. But…”

He looked back up, a whole world all their own behind those slit hazel eyes.

“Some things would have happened regardless. Things outside of my control, outside of anyone’s control. Things… Things I’ll always be to blame for. Things I’ll always have to admit to.”

A tower of despair shadowed over Aegis now, one that eased where it once shattered.

“But… hehhh there’s never enough time to say it all huh.”

The groans surrounding were easing, the ground was starting to rumble slightly, even a heat was starting to radiate. The heroes were waking up, and the war was far from over.

“Here… I’ll explain it all later when you find me again.”

That smile returned if only slightly, but was met with-

“WAIT!! How the hell am I supposed to find you? Para destroyed everything!”

A moment of sentimentality lost pushed Seth’s head over and released yet another exacerbated sigh.

‘Always has to come back to Para doesn’t it.’ “Okay…”

But a smile wormed its way back.

“Heh… Look where all the lost and abandoned go to be found.”

But that smile bearing clever hints was melted by reality.

“Though it might be a little dilapidated these days. Eh you’ll get it, you found me here after all!”

Before Aegis could try to ask, try to stand up off of her piecing together, Seth took a loaded step back. The bedrock cracked, and that horrifying form disappeared, dragging the air with it as all that speed and blur was finally used to escape what had come for it. Followed closely by the pop of a rocky prison and the growl of consciousness returning. A dusty rain and flanking heat surrounded Aegis as she knelt in marginal regain. Kineticlysm stomped the ground in-

“MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

A dragged out fight denied to him before he could let loose. Erdwut on the other hand simmered in his tossed melt, mixed with more disappointment and malice than before. Barely anything left of his stoic mask but what congealed at the surface without a target to point all this fury at. Even as it stared down at the one whose set purpose was just shattered apart. But Aegis just stayed staring, locked straight ahead at the empty space that once smiled back at her. That boy smiling as they laughed off her mom’s over protectiveness, that smile beaming at her with a bit of blood still trailing out in victory, that- *CRAkk* toothy grin that just fucking filled back in its space!? Why the hell did he just come back!?

“Sorry, completely forgot to do something!!”

The heroes recoiled like a nuclear bomb had just been dropped in their laps, trained perception not enough to draw them back. Least of all as Seth extended his right out high and flexed that claw wide. The palm sparked to life, electricity arcing up the scaly fingers, a bright flare that none could ignore.

“I gotta do something with all this power after all!!”

The stoicism and frustration melted into a flash of fear as that palm disappeared in a growing ball of energy too bright to look at. Kinetic tried to restart his personal fight hungry war. And Aegis tried to reel away, but she only succeeded in falling backward as Seth brought that palm down… slapping the bedrock with far too much power. The flash disappeared, spidered and zigzagged through the crater in every direction in the instant it grounded. Heroes still pained to the ground recoiled and tried to flee, others leapt for cover over the lip or just escaped the ground itself. But all of them could do little to stop what was coming, as that maw curled up in an almost playful smile… and all were loosed from their earthly bounds.

All feet, butts, backs, and knees, groaning bodies and desperate flights and demanding charges trying to stop what was already begun. All were lifted from the crater floor, gravity not so much mitigated as refuted. A storm of arcs lifted them up, cutting any momentum, and dancing to ground, but in set patterns with set purpose. The arcs spreading through the air, faint ionization snaking and ricocheting about in all directions. Bolts scattering through the caved in ground and razed buildings, both long destroyed and recently rubbled. All threads spreading for one grand reconstruction. Seth didn’t want this destruction to be left on his already stacked tab. The arcs flared and an en masse motion took place. The dust in the air, the dust falling back into its crater rippled, began to recede, filling in with material both recently dissipated and borrowed from those burdened with excess. Atoms dragged away or back to their places, given back their glue and form to undo their dusting. And there were plenty of caved in sewers open for repurposing. Weapons, stabbed into the ground for safe keeping, and to keep collateral damage down, were floated out. No sense burying them just so their wielders could dig them up and undo this all. The scattered structures at every corner floated up, reformed, blocks and chunks hovering back into place like an autoassemballing jigsaw puzzle. The plasma fusing hiss of caught air between accentuating the heavy thunks of massed rebuilding. Last but not least, a few repaired transmission lines. Eagleville had enough problems without leaving them in permanent blackout. The crater ceased to be as asphalt recoated the surface, in better condition than when it was destroyed.

One last job done, and excess energy expended, the heroes were released from their magnetic levitation and flopped back down to gravity’s rule. Seth’s talons stabbed the warm asphalt, the power exertion raising steam from the fresh reconstruction… and driving him down in momentary exhaustion.

“Whoo! There… that’s better…”

Arms hung at his sides and a few haggard breaths are all the overly surprised and discombobulated heroes saw as they picked themselves back up, paradox highlighted for a great many more. Though a paradox few cared for elaboration with. The glares started up again, powers flared and weapons freed and scattered were reequipped. That playful haggard smile drew back and turned about, legs locked back down to get him the hell out of here already. A final spray of fresh asphalt, and that form disappeared for good, leaving the beaten heroes to pick up the pieces. At least the ones still left out of place.