A new day’s worth of contemplation and explanation, and the air was-

“No!! Fuck You! NO!!”

Already boiling over. Hands were knuckled nearly to bone, flaring without control and burning the lip of the map table, piercing palms and forearms they clutched to, or were just holding dearly to their composure in the face of an adversary they couldn’t fight back. The truth hurt, and made the cause Aegis held to all the more tenuous. The room was quieted for that simmering moment, the operators given the hour and the doors locked for secrecy. But that quiet could not hold in the face of what this regrouping Elite just heard.

“Fucking aliens, energy beings, malformed… whatever the fucks! You really fucking think we believe all this shit!”

Hothead was as disheveled in dress as he was in composure. Unable to hold back after one too many beats to his standing. His glare read like a man who bet his life savings and lost it to a game of rock paper scissors. He just couldn’t give up on scissors. Like he wasn’t giving up on his bias now, in the face of an overwhelming truth.

“I called in a favor and brought along some of Psyclops’ all seeing eye pods. We have the whole thing on tape. We also have Scarlet Mimic’s sworn transcript of the admissions. I don’t care if you don’t trust me anymore, you can’t disregard this… Or my stance on it.”

Another pang of constrained fury racked the room, sending those four sets of disquieted hands into themselves again. Maglev was holding back from breaking for the door and leaving this nonsense behind, the start of a heaving fit already breaking a cracking facade. Buster was trying her hardest not to tear a chunk from her arm as she retreated deeper into herself. The only one to take any of this news with calm understanding was Makani Samurai, but even he could not escape the flinch of a deep seated hate flaring up. And of course Erdwut did all he could to keep his stoicism up, even as the tape over his obliterated mask boiled away from the heat it failed to keep back. All in all probably the better of the outcomes Aegis expected from them. Though she was omitting the major catalysts for the worst of those results.

“You can’t keep him from us.”

That failing stoicism glared up, doing everything it could to reign her in.

“You can’t keep the justice due at bay.”

“And you can’t make me tell you where he is. And from where I’m standing that justice has already been done. Resent is dead… or at least contained.”

“I already told you we aren’t accepting that crap!!”

Hothead still couldn’t help being the voice of dissent.

“He could be lying! For fuck sake, you want us to believe a laceroid at its word?! He could have just made all this up so we’d feel sorry rather than burn him alive like the monster he fucking is! And you’re taking the bait all the way to the damn pol-“

“SHUT UP!!!”

The room shook as Buster made her presence irrefutable, the blade on her back humming up to its greenish gleam in the process. Her expression contorted like a pain confession, but hands relinquished their torturous holds on her over buffed arms.

“She’s telling the truth…! Whether you like it or not.”

The room almost doubled over themselves as the undeniable second boiling volcano suddenly shifted her stance in the face of all that had been done to her and her friends.

“That thing that killed Ziyou, that fucking thing I skewered and killed. That wasn’t what I fought last time… That wasn’t the thing that gave my Oscillasaurus his voice.”

Her eyes rose up, pictures of serious admission, of downright painful acceptance.

“That thing and that kid are two different fighters… Two different beings. Osci said so himself!”

Straining eyes fought like their owner to keep back what demanded to streak down her face. Something more than a sword and its wielder held between.

“He… he had to live with it fused to his blade for days. He knows what that thing is… He knows it’s real. And so do I!”

Hothead sneered like he was the only sane person in the room, the only one who had enough sense to call out the bullshit he saw around him. But its compounding misunderstood weight only had more to come as none of the faces he looked to for support reciprocated his bias. Samurai just nodded in line as a character witness and fellow swordsman’s intuition. Erd’s stoic glare on Buster appeared both skeptical and mildly angry, something altogether different than what had been seeping through the cracks. He didn’t want to believe her, and something about her admission drew a rise out of him. The only face in line with Hot’s was Maglev, but his attempting disconnection was too strong to curry aid. Thus Hot was alone in his dissent, and losing hard on his platform.

“Opinions aside… the issue of justice still stands.”

Erdwut seemed to rectify and return to his original barely contained status quo.

“As far as the people are concerned he is guilty of all of his crimes, trying to separate two different personalities from a single body will only create more uncertainty for them.”

It was clear he was refusing to acquiesce to Aegis’ position, damn near falling back on Para’s stance like it was prearranged.

“We cannot allow someone like this free reign, the people are already scared enough as it is. We need to stifle those fears not add more fuel to them. And allowing this… thing to walk among them will only constitute a further breach of their trust in us.”

“Hgrrr… I already told you we have him under surveillance, under trusted guard, and he’s sworn to stay put. Anything more is just as likely going to cause another graduation incident rather than “stifle” people’s fears. But beside the facts that you want to debate, I can tell you we don’t even have anything in Omni that can hold him.”

The low grumble in the air unwillingly assented to the issues.

“But in the end, all of that is expecting too much from us. We are very arguably 0 for 3, and anymore fights are just going to reinforce the disparity at best. At worst we’ll be wreaking the city for our own pride. A pride he is fully aware of the folly of, and will most certainly not let us hear the end of should it come to a fight yet again. That’s why I’m not going to let you anywhere near him. End of discussion.”

That low grumble rose higher in clear directions, but could do little to fire back. Merely permeate the air with displeasure.

“The only issue I see here is what are we going to say to Para once he’s out of physical therapy and wanting to be back in the fray? The incident he’s going to cause will certainly stoke those fears you so want to avoid. And don’t get me started on Techno, he’ll be scrounging the whole damn city for him the second he learns and we don’t need him off center right now. We need him on that suit ASAP.”

The glare from Erd shifted to almost dismissive.

“Para has chosen to refuse therapy and gone AWOL. We don’t really know where he’s gone, but more than likely he’s taken his impairment poorly.”

Aegis’ ever ready hand slapped her face softly, but still tried to beat away the abject misery of her expectations.

“Why do I feel like I was the only one to visit him in the hospital? I mean I should expect this from you, but still! …Grrgh, how about Tech?”

“He has been sequestered in his lab for the past few days, all we see are service bots bringing him food and locking up behind them. The problem is he never told us if he-*WOIPWOIP*

The room jerked up from their myriad of consternations as one of the terminals flashed up a warning before passing it off to the map laid out between all of them. At first it was just a red dot intermixed among the gradient hues of emergencies and responders. But quickly that terminal passed along its full readout to draw all attention to that one small dot. It was a preprogramed C.A.S.P.E.R. routine pulling up energy scalars and wave graphs to fill the illuminated space over the miniaturized holographic city, along with several tacked on call logs running parallel and getting descriptors pulled out.

Cloaked //

Metallic //

Energy waveform match within 73% //

Armored //

Glowing //

Output within previously measured parameters and climbing //

Subject match 85% //

Red Eyes //

Subject identified…

Recommendation: Immediate deployment

Raffles Memorial Park, The Defiant Green Space, The Fight Park. This place had a lot of names tied to it. A lot of history beaten into it. Repaired and regrown so many times that they just stopped planting trees and left it with a thick carpet of grass and spared spaces for gardens. And the surrounding property rendered little more than towering concrete walls to keep the shockwaves at bay. But the new shorter bunker-esk buildings on the inner ring offered at least safe temporary spaces. And the prospect of front row seats to the next great bout in defense of Kadia. Except, outside of that expected future… fucking hell was it a boring patrol. Watching over it may as well be a lesson in being a voyeur because that really was all you’ll ever do there. Watch other people go about their lives and enjoy the park while it was still there.

Meanwhile…

“You’ll be stuck on a rooftop for hours on end. GRrrrrhhh!”

It had been a few days since his graduation, but Ohmega was already feeling the tedium of true hero work. And failing to keep up with the empathy he was sorely lacking. Having to look down on the hordes of pedestrians and picnickers and yoga classes and lovey dovey dates at the park.

“HHUuugghhh…”

It was more than likely having the opposite effect it was supposed to. His father had vouched for him to take up this coveted position, the first to face down any villains who had honor enough to challenge rather than just destroy. But it served a more personal purpose as well, to force Ohm to be around other people and relate to them. Or at least that was the plan.

The reality was he just sat on the highest building on the inner ring and watched the world walk by as he slowly lost more progress than he’d gained. A feeling only amplified by the fact his fellow graduates were already being taken on missions and getting to see some action. Action he was demanding to be a part of from the get go. The grudge he had on Seth only intensified when he blew the hall wide open and murdered Ziyou. The others he couldn’t care less about, and he would have rooted for Para to get what he deserved. But he wanted Ziyou as a trainer. As a rival to gauge himself to. As a sparring partner to rise over one day. But instead… all he was left with was more lessons from his father and a greater gap between him and Seth. A gap he needed to cross already.

”Not sit fucking idle on a rooftop watching old ladies throw corn at birds!!”

But there he was, sat on the metal coped lip. Radio dub dangling from the collar of his still gold trimmed suit and just watching the world flow by with almighty contempt sneering his face. A contempt that faltered as that flowing world seemed to shift ever so slightly. A few faces stopped their incessant smiling, that flow began to part and accelerate, and a good deal of eyes all looked to one among the throngs. Someone cloaked like an edgy scarecrow a little too happy with life. An unnerving sway and broken gate only adding to the fearful meandering that surrounded them. A villain if there ever was one. And one just waiting to cause havoc. So maybe a little action at last.

A battery at his side flopped back dry as he smiled wickedly and slid off the coping, grappled to the rail running to the ground with much greater enthusiasm. The metal soles of his boots sparked as he broke his gaining velocity before disengaging and crunching the pavement waiting below. A few fearful eyes sprang back at the sudden breaking of the growing silence, but quickly that fear shifted to stymied relief and hurried escape. The flow reduced and reversed course as he passed, a direct route to his cloaked quarry still drunkenly walking through it all. Only now at street level could he hear the sound of heavier metal striking concrete and grass with every step, hear the clanking of plates tapping together with every sway to and fro… and feel the buzz of power leaking into the air.

That burst of confidence he had began to waver, his senses blurred to what was causing that leak. But he could still feel its source. And it was a power he could remember. Power he felt during graduation, a phantom tug on what he’d taken for himself. A power he felt afterward, when it all loosed in an instant and shattered the main hall of the Hill. And power he saw stare back at him when he and his father made it to the battlefield too late to make a difference. A power he had been waiting to refute. But feeling it now… He knew he was in over his head. But he had a duty to uphold, even as his fear rose to the common consensus surrounding him.

“HEY!!”

The warble in his voice was hidden away, but still the people spattered on all sides could tell even he was scared.

“You mind coming down…! You’re scaring everybody!”

That life loving sway stopped in its grass digging tracks. The center of the park was theirs to command as everyone too scared or too staunch to leave watched on from as far as they could manage. Watched on as their euphoria hit a precipice and flared that charge in the air for all to feel. As that cloak turned around with uncontained malice.

That shadowing cloth could do little to hide the metal helmet jutting out from under it, the maw that was locked in a grin of contiguous cut out teeth. A back glow of crimson contained and given luminance against the early sun, but its confines were losing out to its growing rivalry. A rivalry that flared with every word that raked from that electric maw.

“Sorry… was I causing a scene? How uncourteous of me. But what else is there for me to do, I can’t help but enjoy this life.”

Ohm went wide eyed seeing that familiar helmet, that jagged break. That shadowing cloak fanned out as armored claws splayed into the light, to take in the world around and shine with it. That maw raised skyward as well, in a horrifyingly extending smile.

“The chill of the air, the heat of the sun, the feeling of ground beneath my feet. The fullness of a real breath, the circulation of real blood, the unpleasant sensation of overfilled loins.”

Ohm cringed back but shook off his revulsion of this over eager destroyer of his pride.

“I love it all.”

He flashed looks of demanding evacuation to everyone he could see. This was bad. Very bad!

“But of course… There’s still something missing. An… emptiness. An expectation.”

Pedestrians and picnickers were frightened to a standstill, unable and unwanting to set off this definite bomb. They slowly pulled feet back, grabbing hold of any near but locking their eyes to the straightening shadow growing in radiance.

“A hole that wishes to be filled… One last sensation that has been denied to me so far.”

That armored grin turned down to that desperately charging Ohm, power disparity coming to blast as his muscle glow dimmed. As that once shadowing cloak burned against the light of what it contained. Armored plates of pure metal sheen tethered together by edges of blood red connection. Talons and claws flexing with ebbing burn. Bulk and contour of original plating hiding away the aberrant malformation inside. A walking skeleton coated in jagged and oozing crimson, unnaturally bound despite their gaunt existence. Ignited cloth flaring upward as that helmet came down to rest, as those twin red eyes came down on all. With a hunger unmatched and unstoppable.

“I’ve always wondered what complete despair tastes like!”

“ffffffFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!”

The world was sent into a crawl, electrical additions pushed to their max to get Ohm out of the way. But that performance enhanced perceptive slowdown was shattered as this living armored abomination ripped into the space Ohm dove out of. And moved its maniacal gaze back over him like it had always been at this higher speed. That standstill exploded and sent his back rolling across the ground, terror flattening his training and letting him careen. A bit of traction caught his foot and carried him upright, just in time for a claw to skewer that patch of unlucky grass. A claw that nearly pulled him into it as that same patch of ground withered and burst into dust. Heavy black dust. His confidence was gone, his fight was gone, the only thing Ohm could think, the only thing he could feel, and the only thing he could say was-

“RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!”

That lucky foot pivoted and blasted him lateral with a burst of electric propulsion as the spattering of civilians were finally able to feel the will to flee for their goddamn lives! The distance of the park disappeared in a fraught moment, but that same torrential hungry pull materialized over Ohm’s shoulder like on coming death. His gait slipped with purpose this time, back lurched overboard and out of the way of a siphonus slash cleaving through where his opposite shoulder once was. Back met ground again and offered no remorse as that red flared death wound up the other claw above him. The flash of horror was replaced with the jet of plasmaed air and rutted turf, Ohm sending himself rocketing away as that claw scoured the ground and devoured nothing but more dirt. To the dismay of all those brave enough to see.

Another friction catch and Ohm was flipping over and back on his feet, pivoting away again without the slightest care left to what was behind him. Lightning wreathed steps tore up already trodden turf, fellow fearful steps only a few meters ahead of him. A slow to react man still scrambling away, someone still too close to the battlefield, someone who needed- *shliiiBRRRRR* something Ohm could never achieve.

A claw raked through his torso like it knew nothing of resistance. The contortion of impact, the splatter of blood and loosed tissue, the splinter of bone three layers deep. It all burned away into spreading, raking red plasma. Still ignorant and reeling remnants scorched to black at that near total edge, structure lost and left for momentum to toss what was left to the ground. As that red plasma reversed course and soaked into that metal claw, suffused through that gaunt wreath beneath all that armor, and fed into a renewed euphoria across that metallic abomination’s face. Into that creature Ohm only knew as his one sided rival, no more. All he knew now was that he was prey. They all were prey.

That skeletal body of luminous malice filled with its intake as ripped apart abdomen spilled across the grass at its feet, growing in brightness and god-awful delight. The grin broken into its face contorting further despite the solid metal structure, the whole damn thing writhing up like it was having the best experience of its life eating a man down to atoms. Ohm couldn’t look away, couldn’t reconcile with the instantaneous failure of his absentminded thought of trying to save him. All he could do, all he could think, all he wanted… was to just fucking run! More turf was rutted and scrambled, a new direction jetted away in. To hell with duty and empathy, he just wanted to live. Because all the thing behind him wanted was-

“More!”

Ohm’s peripheral filled with crimson glare, with hungering pull, with stereophonic screaming. But that death did not come for him, even as he faltered and turned back to see his failure made real. A woman raked round, arms loosed to spiraling out as a high claw stabbed through her chest and whipped opposite. Torrential mists of atomized viscera burned in arcs of corrupting red, as another body was consumed by siphon and left to fall in to itself. Sparking arcs of nervous activity jumped from her desecrating, decapitating neck, and were forced into that oozing reverse flow back to their predator. Back to the filling gullet of physical malice demanding-

“MORE!!”

More innocent bystanders, more too slow to react or flee. More failed duty and flashed empathy splattered across Ohm’s face as those who held out hope for his protection. All he could do to acknowledge that hope was watch as this returned and corrupted menace turned them to splatters of dust and blood and ate them for what their beings were truly made of. Like an eater of souls, a siphoner of life, a vicious vampire of energy in all its forms… like… Like everything was made of energy to it. Like… like in that holographic city, like the robots, like what he did to them. Like he knew how to do! So maybe he can counter if he-

“MOOOOORRRREEEEE!!!”

Ohm’s fright wrought realization was rent moot as that pull intensified to levels greater than even graduation. That crimson form burned, bulged. No longer a skeleton of malignance but a personification of gluttony and avarice. Squeezed between ill fitted armored plates, spilling out its skin made of plasma and malice. The grass was stained to black and red in all corners, but at its feet it was sucked inward like a black hole stood atop it. That vermilion glare was rising, both in luminosity and stature. Rising through its gluttonous form like it was regurgitating a new star right in the middle of the city. Filling the air with cacophonous wiring like machinery charging to release. Ohm’s horror frozen feet slipped from the slicked turf, pull becoming physical and drawing everything into that flaring, all-consuming maw. But that small spark of realization found a hold, as did his hand into the dirt, and as did his duty… as he saw a coddling form pressed and cowering to the curb ahead of him.

A father and his daughter, holding on for dear life as everything in this gods forsaken park was made food for the death coming for all. A fate Ohm could not stand seeing again, could not have tearing at him if he was even able to survive this. Because… Because he had a duty. Even if he couldn’t give a rat’s ass, he had to save them! That hand clawed him up, his metal soles dug into the turf, and the last gasp of his stored up power exploded him away in a quickly torn away bolt of propulsive electricity. Meters turned to feet, apathy turned to empathy, and selfish instinct turned to almighty grip on everything he had, everything he was, and everything that thing wanted to- *BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

A slowdown, a perceptive parity…? No. A grim slowness brought on by on rushing death. That star was born and died in its gluttonous cradle, stellar beam of pure consuming crimson blotting out all light but its own. Tearing away all the life it was denied. The ground caved beneath its path, exploded to molten glass in its cavernous wake. The target of its vengeful fury held for even less of an instant. A bunker café at the park’s three o’clock disappeared without a passing frame of heated effect or torn apart structure. Just a melted atomized hole bore through it to the titanic concrete bollard dressed up like a high rise behind it. A defense only given for the barest fraction of a second. Foundational structures exploded under loosed pressure, reinforcements obliterated and rendered molten shrapnel to tear into the world spared from that death. The world the beam turned to on its clockwise buffet. More bunkers and pillars cut through and disintegrated. Those too slow to run disappeared in that light, those who thought they were safe or far enough away disappeared with their chosen hides. Those who made it to safety beyond this path of annihilation were obliterated in more direct fashion, as ejecta and shrapnel battering and dashing them to stains on the streets. And adding countable tallies to this carnage as that path continued round. Closer… and closer to Ohm.

The air was unable to stand still even if the world around it tried to. Even as Ohm forced himself staunch and walling by a duty he knew he had to hold. As the trembling bore further, as that dying star turned to face him at last. His vision split between onrushing crimson light, burning through his being with just proximity alone, pulling at the soul he was clutched to with everything he had. And between surviving existence too slow to escape… As a wave of orange tried its hardest to cover it. But the flash of this grim instant finally gave way. To it all finding truth to that realization, and to the sum of his worth as a hero.

The rush of bashed and scorched air tore past to the crumbling catastrophe of the periphery falling in on itself. That wall of orange spread about in all directions, between the outer world and the inner nightmare. A small imperfection jutting into its circle, defending the last of the periphery from the hell unleashed upon it. At its far right edge, still stood in staunch defiance, was Ohm… Feeling the weight of his choices and the total of his worth. The sound of the father and daughter behind him scrambling up came in from a single side, the radiant feeling of safety from that translucent barrier only soaking into that… one… side…

His breath was uneven, full of soot and tasting of ash. He dared not look down, he dared not look at what had happened to him. All he could do was look to his left, at the true heroes who came to save him, who came to end this. Who came just in time to spare him the futile sacrifice he had managed. The Elite were here… Aegis was here.