The small pocket of the wider world, sequestered away beneath a dome of pure orange, collapsed in on itself with the cataclysmic rumble of concrete and metal given over to gravity and velocity. The ground cracked and shook with every grand pillar of protection felled in order. The smoke and debris that escaped containment puffed their curtailed momentum in dying wisps, but the bulk violently pressed to every edge and rocked with every impact hidden inside. But the hell wrought snowglobe she’d created wasn’t what Aegis cared about, the only thing she could do was rush to Ohm’s side with a single hand spared to maintain her dome.

His collapse in kind with the rest of that world was assured and stopped before he added his own impact. One arm hooking into his still wide-body block, shoulder hefting his armpit for all the leverage it was worth. Aegis was slid to a stop with Ohm hanging off of her, his sum total felt in the oozing burn ignored by her cradling arm. She slipped it back as best she could, but felt too much follow her hand as it cupped his back and laid him down. Whatever his plan had been, it had succeeded in keeping him from being torn apart for all his body's mass was worth, but had failed to account for the heat of that malicious dead star.

Nearly his entire right side was boiling and charred, surviving skin and muscle sloughing off and bubbling. The gold border of his suit melted out over his sternum, a new border hardening as the fires cooled. Exposed bone crackled like a dying campfire, the smell nearly gagging Aegis out of her full frontal concern. His right arm had taken the worst of the blast, in that everything past the elbow ceased to exist. The only saving grace Ohm had was that his head was intact, some singed hair and surface burns scaring his face at worst. But his ribs were nearly exposed, as was his hip, and the split wheeze of his breaths told a story no one should have to hear.

Aegis pulled her hand from beneath him, affording it only a glance over the torturously obvious. Black char and bloody remnant staining, already swelling blisters and surface burns marred all else. But the pain was nothing, it had to be. Because his pain was worse. She could see it in his trembling gaze upward, no strength left to look anywhere but up, and no reaction afforded but the rolling tears streaking the dust off his face. He’d tried his best, he’d shown he wasn’t some uncaring snob. But his only reward was this pain. A pain Aegis couldn’t help share in as she clenched that burned and bloodied hand as tight as she could. They only thing she could even do for him. But even that pain faded as a new, better warmth found a hold.

That healing warmth from Mediknight finally catching up with his frantic ride, hollow hurried footsteps fighting the dying crumble of the last of the debris for prominence. He was over top and pressing a gentle armored hand to the center of Ohm’s chest before Aegis even had time to look back for a prognosis. The worst of the wound already closing as his knees settled in at Ohm’s side. She looked up into those empty slats for any reassurance, but could only feel the fatigue being fought back as he steadied himself and placed the other hand to staunch receding char. But, in the end, she had done what she could and only had hope left to give. This was his fight now. Hers was only just beginning.

Aegis rose back up to a solidifying stance, recedingly blistered hand forced up to reinforce the thinning far edge of her three fourths dome. The last of the cacophony relenting beneath it, and quickly replaced by the muffled agony of those unlucky enough to have made it to their thought safety. Crises for help from all ranges, groans and hacks close by, sobs… buried in the rubbled buildings past the wall. But even those soon muffled away as the drone of the rest of the League filled that decimated air. The smaller side doored VTOLs whipping down from the sky, close as they can to the now open skyline. Heavily laden and pulling into intersections adjacent, dropping off all the medics and rescue crews they could hold. One among them pulling in over Aegis’ cut out fourth, jet wash scouring her and Medi’s shielding backs. The rest of the Elite she couldn’t drag along were dropping in.

A rope spooled on her far left, but without fail or falter that stoic stance impacted right by her side. And stared at her with the ire of confirmation of condemnation. Aegis didn’t flinch from her stance, but still took that ire for the overlong second spared to it. Hothead, Samurai, and Buster all repelled down as Maglev levitated himself into place. A sober return to the lineup, and a reminder of what had been taken from them. And all signs pointed to the taker of their comrades and their pride was still center stage amid the destruction and death before them. Silent acknowledgements and preplanned maneuvers passed between them, a slight dredging of Aegis’ simmer as her position was staunch within reason. Her expected involvement had already peaked. Even if it was looked at as little more than window dressing now. That once invincible border between peace and chaos now just another wall that could be breached. And few cared for the truth buried under that sentiment.

But still they waited for it to open for them, for the dust to settle and their battle to commence. For Medi to clear Ohm from the battlefield awaiting them. Aegis’ fourth rolled up along its inner wall, just high enough to allow her team in. A wave of pressure differential blew wisps of powderized concrete and blackened dust before them, heavy particles falling at their feet and losing out in their obfuscation. An obfuscation already rendered moot by the dim red light shining ahead of them. No attempt to hide and ambush, nowhere and no reason to flee as that fourth closed back up behind this lunatic’s new challengers. All they had now was the suit they undoubtedly stole, the devastation they caused… and hopefully the sense to rue ever thinking they would come out of this alive. Because Aegis wasn’t about to take getting made a fool of lightly.

But still that red light worried her, the power expressed and thrown around without even a sensible cause or reason. This had to be more than just whatever left over power was in the suit, and she knew full well it wasn’t Seth… It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be! But the only alternative was that he was telling the truth, and it was clear that thing had regained its power if so. But her trust was waning. He said it should have been dead or close to it, nowhere near as powerful as this. And this power, it wasn’t from the grid, and it couldn’t have been produced in such a short amount of time without tripping something sooner. But as the soot and dust finally lost its billow, the truth of this menace became readily apparent. As the battlefield her team was squaring up to enter turned black in gruesome gradient toward its glowing red center. The same black that stained their nightmares. That same black, emptied out dust still marring the Wall, and still staining the streets from Berta to Brighton. Dust that shouldn’t be possible.

Funneled in on two sides by crumbled square piles of once grand bollards, the park before them was nothing even resembling its former humble space. The grass that gave it the only green it had was reduced to black rippled dirt, and the bollards that once defended it not spared in this fate either. Where the tops fell before this malignant center, the grey and tangle of rubble and rebar disappeared into black lifeless dust. Like everything that got too near was ripped apart at its smallest seams. And in the center of this new scar upon the world… hanged that same suit that had renewed its fellow wounds. Taut beam holding it up as it edged back, arms hung off its shoulders and loosed to euphoria. And that helmet wide open taking in all that it had done.

Those jagged false teeth almost seemed to smile up at the shaded and hued sky above, seemed to enjoy the carnage they had caused. Those claws splayed and loose were stained to black and smoking, the truth of their crimes boiling into the metal. Caking on to every plate like so much falling ash. But Aegis could see more than should be there. The plates bulking up that irking profile were not even, not fully connected, like the suit wasn’t fitted correctly. What was spilling between them though wasn’t clear, but it glowed with that same dimmed red drawing everyone’s ire. An ire that spiked as the tail swished to life behind it, and showed its aberrance for all to see. The plates flowed wide and exposed the matter beneath. If it could even still be called that. Bony vertebrae coated in barely opaque skin, coated and glowing with that crimson light. Like a being made of pure energy. And pure malice.

That helmet tightened up, those clawed arms flexed to life, and finally those eyes fell on their opponents. Those paired red eyes. Gone were the forward swept horns crowning the head, but also gone was any semblance of dichotomy. This thing was all one mind, all one purpose, and all one burning desire… One burning resentment for everything it saw.

“You’ve fallen to your lowest!! Haven’t you?!”

Erd and Eschenwald were both already alight, already condemning without knowing who they were even yelling at.

“All the lies you thought we would just accept!! All the nonsense you gave to Aegis to turn her against us!! All of the sympathy you thought it would bring about!! You couldn’t even hold back your true self for a DAY!!! But at least now you speak the truth of what you are!!”

That molten blade whipped down, and its softened cover with it, the true Eschenwald beneath gleaming to life in forceful unsheathing.

“A monster needing to be put down!”

Aegis gritted her teeth at the complete misread of who he was talking to, but lost her chance to correct him as their line up bristled in line. Flames and bars flared and congealed on either side, a constellation of reused rebar pulled aloft from the flanks and full force fire power readied to burn this abomination alive. Their flanks in turn did not skimp in their readiness due to their acceptance of reality, swords of juxtaposed width raised in waiting for the starting bell. Samurai keeping the right in line and matching his stance with the rubbly rebar stacks floating around him. And Buster held tight to sweep left once the flames were loosed. But what truly stayed Aegis’ retort was that resurrected mound of malicious metal…

“heh… hehah… haahaha… YEHAHAHAHA!!!”

Its laugh, its voice was a buzz, bolts arcing between its teeth and turning its maw into a spray of bloody electrostatic viscera. The spray turning to a wanton dribble as it chuffed back to alignment.

“Always simple minded! Always failing to see! Never able to accept the truth! Whether it be staring you in the face…! Or burning a hole in your hand.”

That last comment nearly shattered that masking stoicism all on its own, sent Erd bristling and a ripple through Eschenwald like before. But no extra seething waves struck the blade, but the volcano was more than ready to erupt again.

“Oh, it’s always a joy to watch you people squirm in anger! To watch a single word break you open like an egg! To watch you writhe in ignorance every time you try to KILL ME!!”

Aegis was certain now, this wasn’t-

“To watch you balk and connive at true power!!”

This couldn’t be-

“To watch you reject and deflect when faced with reality!!”

This isn’t Set-

“To watch the realization melt the color from your face each time you fail! Well… I think it’s time some of you died instead!”

“ERD WAIT!!!”

But Aegis’ moment had already come and gone.

“IT’S NOT HIM!!!”

As that living armor of gaunted hatred had already burst from its center.

“IT’S NOT SETH!!!”

And bore over its prey with the malicious smile of a retribution too long overdue.

“IT’S RESENT!!!”

There was no chaffing of metal on metal tensing together, nor ground in dust between taloned toes, not even the snapping of the air crushing and rebounding in its wake. Nothing to signal, nothing slow enough to draw attention. Only the sudden material closeness of that abominable smile over Erd’s slightly turned head, and the unmistakable slowdown of grim perceptive dread under the crimson light of oncoming death. A death that could be refuted at equal pace with a clearing back pedal and liberal application of a gleaming metal- *SCEEEEEOOOOOMMM*

That equal guard evaporated, and the repercussions all came with it. That gleaming Eschenwald shattered down under raking wreathed claw, sent to grounded shrapnel at speed excess, and all that rebounding air snapped apart what little concentration was left.

Erdwut reeled as his sword was again broken to pieces, handle still stiff in his grip and an unlucky gash traced through his once pristine tabard. The narrowest gap between life and death, a death that coalesced that trace and all that it had touched, turning it from flash melted slag to corruptive burn. A burn that filtered back and filled out that gaunt grin as it rose with the other claw set to skewer. Only for that malicious red grin to disappear in a wall of fire as Hot refused to be stunned so easily anymore. That back pedal received coverage and a moment was given, just not to Hot as his flames whipped away between clawed digits and buzzed air. But then neither was Resent given that moment as a slab of metal came about on that overdone megalomania. Monumental clang of metal on metal homerun haloed the rest of the dispersed flames away, and slammed him back to the ground he’d sucked dry.

A dusty rut of grey and black layers stopped short as it burst back under clawed force, head snapping back front off its slamming. But the menace failed to articulate before that constellation fell upon him. Twisted rebar and shorn metal showered over like meteors from on high, blasting back more desiccated concrete with complete abandon but tight dispersion. Yet the sparks and cacophony of failed penetrations said plenty to its true usefulness. A buzzing burst of magnetic waves cleared the dust in a perfect sphere, ricocheting the last of the falling metal stars and putting that result on full display. Ribbed rods of twisted metal and shorn concrete tagalongs coated the ground, and jammed into every open space they could fit into. Wedged into every joint and gaunted space, plugging every hole considerable times over. The splatter of a more physical crimson around the impacts shined some success but quickly regretted it with every drop. That internal burn crawled up the intruders, threaded through them like veins, before this living resentment flexed and shattered and consumed them as more sustenance to fill its form.

The helmet came back down, canted with violence and wanting revenge, and falling apart as skilled steel flowed through a few of those flaring gaps. A ball of contrails and condensate followed behind Samurai’s already completed slash, tracing lines through the more than adequate targets he had this time around. The left arm forced straight and up, like its strings had been picked, exploded. Blood, meat, and plate of every size sent spiraling through the air in leading directions. Meat sticking fast to its covering metal, like the two were fused and inseparable. But blood still stained the dust and clouds in those contrailing cuts. Sandals skidded to a stop just short of the armor’s former reach, katana passed to a single hand and all his momentum pressed back into service to cut through its throat. But instead that trained steel sang its song of failure once again, as the other claw staked out and caught it between its fingers, and wrapped it tight with that same spreading corruption.

All the short while that rapidly disassembled arm refused its destruction. Before a chunk could even dirty its dismembered viscera, all flowed back into place. Strings pulled, wrenched hard, singing their own song of reconstruction and defiance. That clanging symphony mixing with the sizzling regeneration all known too well. That same healing factor they fought long ago, now burning hotter than their fire could cauterize. And rising back high without a scratch to mark success, rearing back to skewer its revenge *SCRANNN* once this master swordsman was without his sword.

But the glitter and ring of shattered steel and vengeance was parted by returned molten bludgeon. A scar skimmed into the ground as Eschenwald sliced half a moon of trailing slag between the two, catching launched skewers and parrying their wrath. Erd twisted round in the expanding gap, plate mail boots cutting ruts against his inertia and pointing both sword and wielder back at their target. But not without casualty. That glitter of sword shards flaked and sparked, as did a chuck of that dull molten edge. More matter turned energy and siphoned off to feed. More gaunt frame filled to its brim. But still wanting-

“More!”

So those burning red eyes shifted in an instant, passed over the disarmed samurai still too determined and spiteful, and bore down on more enticing targets. The ones it saw the most fear in. With the same speed a talon twisted the whole suit down and kicked up another burst of doubtless carcinogens into Erd’s attempted hairpin redirection, and threw itself straight at Hothead. A missile of pure hunger, all claws and teeth and digestive being locked on and without breaks but the one put upon it. The one massive slab of defiant humming metal, the one swinging away for dear life. A clothes line of matched edges and compressed tension, blade striking open palm between splayed claws. That uniform yet ramshackle body pressed together, elbows not quite hardy enough not to splinter like over compressed pistons of bloody hydraulics. Nor to stop the chest from meeting that edge in flash spalling greeting. The lower body, legs and all, shot under with spine curdling whiplashed and ever reliable *CLANNGGG*. But it was already clear the damage was moot, and that slab of vibrating steel was in the clutches of that truly omnivorous hunger.

Talons shot back behind, raked the ground up concrete and stopped that grand slam from hitting him out of the park. No, it wanted that monstrosity of counter moderation in its clutches and had more than enough ill will to rip it to atoms. But… but there was no corruptive spread, no flacking obliteration. Just two pieces of metal screeching at each other. Buster shifted her stance hard, held her cleave with everything she had, locked this light bright menace down with the fear of slicing in two and a malicious vengeful grin. So Resent… had lost his enjoyment. Something was stopping him, countering him, refuting his hunger. Aegis could only assume that blade was singing the right tune to keep this bastard- *SKEEAAANnnnnnn* at bay for as long as it wanted to stay.

Those claws slipped down without the fear they should, digits and extremities sliced through yet again, as too the entire torso. Humming oscillations cleaving without fail, once solid defense slashed through like paper. And splattered by more seemingly useless life to the dusted ground it cleaved to. The chest trailed its contents, half a lung and split stomach, bile and blood misted and spraying in rhythmic continuance. Splintered arms peeled loosed without tendon or tension to release with force. But all this damage was meaningless in the face of this cruel laceroidic healing, in the malicious smile rising against the bodily recoil.

Those strings, that wreath of bloody plasma fire pulled taut. Armor clanged as meat slapped back in place, steaming and flashed with sudden reformation, with a total refuting of physical limitations. And with a claw rising high to revel in them regardless. All that could be done, all that could be managed through, all Buster could do… was throw herself away as hard as she could and block like her life- *SHLKOUUuuuuu* was worth more than an arm.

Those claws tore through overgrown muscle, toughened up bone, years of training and ingrained memory. Fine slices were not allowed, rough hewn chunks splattered and splintered, trailing behind and rippling with undo force. And burned apart under that omnipresent gluttony. Flesh and bone popped and split, sizzled and flacked, fried in an instant and became food for the starved beast cutting into her. Sparks as red as the blood boiling away followed their trails, soaked into the stained armor, flowed into those flaring gaps. A flare that extended up the entire arm, filled out more hollowed out being, put muscle to those electrically wrapped bones. And curled that abomination back in euphoric spasm. A meal of another’s built up existence… and their despair.

“Hha… ah… ghrrrrrfffFFFUCK!!!”

The muscle, torn in twain and half assedly cauterized by still disintegrating flesh, bulged and tensed. A leak of blood dribbling down and clinging to her arm. A bone snapping flex stymying the worst her flash amputation could pour out of her. But the tear tearing down her face belied none of the expected effects, and none of the pain ripping through her stance. Her retreat had gotten her out of claws length, but that didn’t mean shit to this thing! And she knew it wanted her more than dead by now. She couldn’t avoid it as that helmet came down… and bore its hunger for “More!!” of her pain. A hunger that rippled those now filled in plates, and tensed that monstrosity to the point- *SCREEEN* of carelessness.

A rebar rod skewered that hungering glare with aim almost unfounded. Sparks and spalling and torn apart sclera spraying out the eye slits, with a stray current of carried internal static. A recoil forcing it off kilter, and blinding that hunger of its current obsession… and giving it a new target to covet. The helmet shifted its harpooned glare Maglev-ward, corruption pulling back what was dashed about and etching away at its new accessory. One already due a few more companions as a composureless Mag put his power to its ultimate extent. Both hands wide, the ground denied, and a lateral expanse of scrap and wreckage already trembling with a fury concealed and discarded till now. One that even fewer had seen, and one that blared the truth he never like to say. He could actually gave a fuck, and Resent was going to feel the repercussions!

A new shower of metal flying way too fast blurred that growing crimson glare beneath a storm of friction and metallic squash. Fireworks of constant burn, redding and whiting rebar smashing and melting into every orifice and opening, and coating this abomination in its over energized prison. The constant flash of en masse friction welding forced all eyes down, but gave distance that all needed in turn. Buster white knuckled her sword into the ground, a shielding break against the waves of spalling splashing into her, and a needed refrain to staunch. Erd took the moment he needed to regather his sword and bring it to full gleaming bear. And Hothead… just took his chance.

The sparks receded but had failed to dissuade his sudden jetting advance, the malignant mass of twisted together melt coming into view proper as all the metal available found its home. But its passive cooling was an affront as he skidded to a stop, stomped his own long overdue fury into the dust, and flare his hand to gale force firestorms in his palms. The air rushed all to him, the oxygen burned away all for him, and his own retaliation burst the seams of expectation. A flash, both hands forced in directed wrath, and his true power made irrefutable. A gout… no a mass ejection of barely bordered white, fire too hot to differentiate its output, and too explosive to throw around with abandon. Too torrential to survive. The mass disappeared once more, but its shadow parted that undulating geyser, finally transitioning it to relatively cooler colors. The latter half of a rainbow of burning annihilation, and more than enough energy to glut this hunger to with a relativistic choking hazard. A vampire of energy given exactly what it wanted in excessive quantities. And hopefully given the full body cauterize it deserved to bear.

But that shadow, that shape hidden in the pure light of fire, refused to sit idle. Screeching stomps of molten metal impediment being ripped apart, even steps underscoring the high altitude decibel plateau that was raging over them. The mass at the center of this burning retaliation was undeniable, impossible to sway, and now… close enough to retaliate on its own. The geyser didn’t have time to relent, Hot caught in the blind of his own attack, white fire contouring nothing till it was too late. Till that helmet remade its appearance from that column of flame, right in his face. Dripping slag and molten iron splattered in its wake, falling from the eyes and maw like leaking existence. But that smile had returned in super massive force, those eyes soaking up the too slow surprise of total ineffectuality on Hot’s face, and a low claw… taking the rest.

The blinding flare whipped away with the spiking force of all five claws skewering into his gut and lifting him off his feet. His arms whipped like stiff lifeless twigs, eyes wider than his irises could take, his mouth wrenched open like his soul was being sucked out, and the world falling upon him to force it out. A half able hack, a bloody retching, a fighting reserve forced his teeth to clench and his arms to grab hold of his attacker with everything he had left. But his hands merely joined in his gut’s burning doom. His flesh seared on the pan of his own heating, blood boiling away before it could even think of leaving him cold. He gagged, the broiling of his stomach too much to hold in. But his eyes only came back up to that malicious stare just waiting to push him over the edge.

“What was it you said to set him off before?”

That buzzing tone seared into his face.

“Everything must go…?”

That weight seemed to reverse course, hysteric instinct trying to pull away.

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer…”

But that reserve redirected again, forcing him back forward, and showing the true weight he had lost out to. The one pulling him apart atom by atom.

“And see what full despair tastes like.”

That grim slowness failed to manifest, failed to give the heroes on all sides even the chance to react. Only forcing them to watch on as the sudden unstoppable force that blurred all else to inadequacy did what it wanted. Flesh disappeared, bone evaporated, blood boiled away so not even mist gathered. Just the splatter of black that put all else to shame, and crawled up in that grim barely won perception and swallowed Hot for all he was now. A flailing torso and waist loosed from what bound them together. Twin trails of flaking existence drained of all life, spiraling in separate directions and disintegrating more and more with distance. More and more with failing time. His expression locked in gaunted horror, blank… and empty. And done with.

Even that perception failed its last and the reality tore that scene apart in kind. Bisected halves left for centrifugal force’s cut, and friction’s pound of flesh. The black became red at last, and the fine flacks became loosed chunks. Emptied sternum and splattered limbs, snapping bones and pasted flesh. Viscera strewn ruts catastrophically ripped into the dust… and that blaring reality haloed between it all. In the spreading blood black rainbow of all-consuming ecstasy. And rising… burning… glow.

“GET BEHIND ME NOW!!!”

That metaphysical arena of orange energy faded and began retreating like a holed bubble, the demand too urgent to cover that distance to safety. So it had to come to them. A burst of thrust away dust and Aegis was hurtling on to the field and whiplashing alongside Buster’s unimaginably inadequate cover. The form in her mind already set, her stance locked with her hands ready to force it into being once her teammates hurried-

“THE FUCK UP!!!”

The shock, the anger, the compounding terror across all their faces, all of it tore away in her command. Faster than was reasonable but reason just got ripped out the door. Erd and Samurai shot from their still far flung positions, bounding over the ruts that were Hothead now. Samurai spinning about with an extended arm and grabbing Maglev out of his too damn slow reaction. Because that rising glow was getting brighter and brighter by the fractions of a second it was taking.

A pull tore at the air, heat scoured every illuminated surface, a new sun was getting born and dying in that hollowing out gullet. The one burning brighter than the flames that had tried to scorch it. The armor rippled and bristled, whirred too loud to even differentiate. Erd broke his inertia on Aegis’ opposite side, Samurai stopping with Mag in tow behind just in time for that glow to reach its zenith and Aegis to spring her defense. A triple thick circle formed with her hands spreading out, and shot over and back when they forced it out. A blunted cone enveloped them, ending in flared edges trying to expand and remake that dome before… before that helmet came around, and loosed that dead star of torn apart existence.

The air haloed, ripped in twain, burned away in fear as that maw snapped open, as that hollowed out shell filled to its brim, as everyone and everything felt that fear for themselves. As the world was subjected to the tyrannical rule of-

*BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

Everything quaked with the ferocity befitting a true stellar death, and that translucent barrier only amplified that continuous surge. Like the beating of a drum from the inside, and at the meter of a neutron star. That spreading dome did what it could to break and dissipate and protect the city, but focus lost out to the barrage trying to turn bones into dust. Thus the crash of plasma storm crested the edges, and towered over the city’s once grand central ring. A red halo of blatant death. One that could only slow its beat as its peak came and went. But its effects proved too much to avoid.

Bones ached like splintering wood, muscles lost strength and trembled like gelatin. Aegis could feel her teeth crack against each other, could not deny that her brain was threatening to split her skull open. But her stance had to hold! It needed to stay up! The others were in doubtless similar states, clutching to whatever they could to hold out and hold on till that drum ceased to beat them to death. The crimson glare of stellar death subsiding little by agonizing little, outer layers of invincible transparency stripping away like paint against desert sand, but still holding and still reverberating down and down regardless. Down to a sudden rushing calm. A calm that could never be held.

That red glow burned into everyone’s eyes faded, yet highlighted still that contorting upright form still burning opposite. Its smile too bright and still chewing through the fried air and carried up dust. Those red eyes piercing everything, carrying a message that those hunkered heroes could not deny. And that flexing tight armor righted itself into a step that nothing could ignore. Talons raked the exposed bedrock still glowing and cooling its melt, echoing against the silence burned into everything. Resent advanced on the shield it knew too much about, the one whose weakness was all too denied to him. And would never be denied… ever-

“It’s not him…”

Aegis’ stance was iron, her teeth gritted nearly to dust, her body racked to breaking, her head locked down to put all her weight in. But she knew…

“It’s not him…”

The other heroes wrenched against their common condition, their situation. Eschenwald was pulled to shoulder and pointed straight with no intention to sit idle. And Erd could only see this already breached barrier as an impediment.

“Drop the shield Aegis!”

“It’s not him…”

Buster on the other side white forearming her entire sword up to bat, tendon screaming and bulging through her skin.

“You need to drop it Aegis!”

“Drop it now!”

“It’s not him!”

All the while those raking talons drew closer and closer, scratching rock to rut and beating against already rattled bones.

“Drop the shield damnit!!”

“Do it NOW!!”

“It’s NOT him!!”

A claw rose level with that confident maniacal smile, digits splayed sharp and knowing their target. The dust cloud permeating trailed away, piss poor duty of shrouding rendered utterly meaningless as that glaring grin ripped through it with all its malice screaming down wreathed in oozing fire-

“DROP IT!!!”

“AEGIS!!!”

“IT’S NOT HIIIIMMMM!!!”

And lost to its own misaligned reality.

*BOUUUOUOOOUOuououououououou*

That stripped away barrier of determined focus and impermeable reason rang… as that over confident claw rebounded off with all of its malice spalled into sparks. That resounding, reverberating tone cut all consternation, all demand and caged fear. It drove Aegis’ head upright again, her eyes dead locked into those burning crimson slits. Seeing them wince for once in their dreadful existence. A wince that compounded, flared, contorted metal down from its ecstasy of carnage. Broke that malignant grin. And drove another claw up to refuse acceptance. *BOUOUOUOUOUOUuououoooo* Another strike of that orange misshapen gong, another tone of absolution from ridicule and suspicion, and another claw refused.

The helmet reared, canted, wanted to snap its own neck before both claws slammed down with all its spring tension beaten into that barrier denying it. Claws that wanted nothing but to wrap around Aegis’ own neck and wring it dry. To fry it to shriveled coal. But all they could do was scratch at that hardly thinned surface, stopped dead by a few millimeters of energy they should have passed straight through. That they should have denied. But all they received was that same fiery stare it had received before, and she that same unearthly malice.

That same stare she’d thought Seth had fallen into back then, that he’d lost himself to. But now it was all too clear, this was someone different, something different. This was, this had been, this will always be Resent. This was what was going to pay for causing all of this. And this was what she was going to condemn always and forever. And it knew that now, knew it was nothing like him, nothing like Seth. It wasn’t worthy, its possibilities were tainted and malfeasant, it deserved only death for what it had done. A death that seethed off of Aegis with the return of that solely visible simmer rising off of her. An intimidation… that couldn’t be reciprocated.

Those metal teeth ground together, the monster inside growled its unmitigated frustration, its claws raking off and sparking. A loss of focus, a chance at containment. That once spreading dome tried to round out and fill in its coverage. Trap this thing before it could escape and wreak more havoc. But a talon rose off the blasted apart ground and slammed that frustration into spring tension upon that echoing shield. One last blaring of that bestial terror, before those talons sprang off that immutable surface and exploded off. Rocketing that metal abomination through the open air before the barrier could close fully. Red streak burned into the air like fleeting lightning. A trajectory unable to be changed, but fired off at too great a velocity to match. Not in their states.

That dome faded and melted away, along with all the adrenaline keeping Aegis propped up out of spite. Another weight relieved was replaced before anyone could try to point them out. Her knees slamming to the ground, that dusted emptied ground, that graveyard impossible to pay respects to. All this death, all this destruction, all this pain brought about in the blink of an eye. Brought about before anyone could stop it, before anyone could even know what was happening. Another mound of corpses to shovel onto the pile on in spite of the truth. More misplaced blame to throw around. More paranoia and fear to wrack this city to its core. All the while more of her people were dead… or close to it. And Seth… all he could be blamed for was ignorance and overconfidence…