A bristling, a tension, an instant flashing by at the pace of a tectonic plate. The air vibrating a frequency too tight to feel as anything but a nervous overload. The ground under foot doing its best to dance to it and failing hard. Dust caked foundations, concrete and piled high emptiness. All of it rippled with that tone. That deafening hum that those inexperienced could only feel as a buzzing instant. But Aegis felt it as a torrential overlong moment of perception backfire. Drowning in sound she could recognize, only turned up too loud to ignore as static. The sound of Seth shattering the limits everyone kept thinking he had.

Her perceptive reflex only just joined, Erd and Samurai and Buster alike in this slowed down world. All sensing the danger rising before them, all scales and terror they knew too well. All gritted teeth and cracking claws, over tensing muscle and all over grip, desperate to hold to even keel and temperate sanity. To at least another promise made. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. The truth was learned like a thousand insults slamming home and driving civility and common sense to screaming taut. With the only outcome left but for it all to snap.

“mother!”

“FUCKING!!”

“PAAAARRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

The moment, the reflex, the air itself, the ground, the buildings, this finite reality. Everything demanded to change with a single overwhelming command, so that this unimaginable anger wasn’t seen as the antithesis of society. Electricity tore off of him, plasma arcing away and through this blasted scar. Blue jagged fire raking between the snapped back to speed onlookers, roaring across the ground and up the piles dashed to the graves they marked. Tendrils tracing through every piece of debris, every obliterated bunker, every granule of empty dust left in the wake. A grand tallying, a totaling of the damage, a taking in of everything Resent took away. Coronal flow arcing up through what was left beyond , pulling skyward like a dome of glass kept it at bay, before folding back in to its screeching bright origin point.

Right into Seth’s open hand. The one burning with a newly condensed star between its fingers. The one gripping tight like everything that had happened replayed over and over again. And the one falling down on this bleeding scar in need to heal.

That same feeling of weightless conveyance, of getting pushed out of the way so she didn’t getting buried in the reformed ground. Those mountains of concrete shot up, separating and reforming like pieces of a puzzle too complex to just redo. The rippling ground, the repurposing of what could be taken and spared. What obliterated specks were asphalt or dirt. What were desiccated grass and regrowing shrubbery or whatever was left of those that died in this hell manifested.

The tendrils lashed to every elevating chunk, burning between them like threads to a sewn cloth. The mountains rising too fast for the air to take, haloing in condensation and cracking from the burden. The ground conforming, black tar asphalt in set circles and spokes, outlined in grey concrete and proper striping. And at its center that returning green of the park repaired too many times over… The unfeeling grass easier to restore than the lives lost in the fire. All a sight too insane to just take in.

The damage was echoing away with concrete thunks, the air caught between and pushed to glowing. The over bright ball of plasma, burning their retinas and pulling it all together, was fading the light back to the midday shade. The slow on the pick up or over absorbed scroungers sharing in the weightless hover just inches from the steaming remade ground. All released back to gravity as it ceased its rippling. But no one gave a crap about the ground. All eyes were locked on Seth, hunkering down before his grand gesture could even fully complete.

That tension returning, that focus denying buzz, that grit too powerful to just release. All with a stance Aegis still knew too well. Her own grit, her own tension, but the competition wasn’t going to allow a handicap. The heat wreathed park exploded into a geyser of brown and green, a launching too extreme to hold back for the fucking topiary! The crack of the air, the screaming of electricity tearing the friction away, he was gone before she could even think of adding thrust. But not fast enough to keep her in the dust.

“Get everyone onto as many birds as you can muster and follow me!!!”

An order, too staunch and demanding to ignore, circumstances be damned. And no time given for Erd to retort as the fresh asphalt under her feet shot back, and the air thundered threefold against her sudden acceleration. There wasn’t time to hesitate, but this wasn’t the time to rush in blind. This wasn’t the time for rage to dictate action all over again.

Kadia’s downtown disappeared in a blur, the clouds gathering ahead closing as one acceleration lost out to the other. Seth could throw himself as hard as he wanted to, but he still couldn’t fly. So Aegis was already barging through his wake by the time those clouds were pierced to the empty altitudes beyond them. And a hand was reaching out to snatch up the reluctantly accepting claw already feeling gravity pull it down.

“HrMPH… Why the hell are you always so damn heavy!?”

It was clear Seth couldn’t muster the facetiousness to retort, eyes locked straight ahead as his speed plummeted to a more agreeable velocity. One that would allow reinforcements to actually arrive on time. To his rising growling curmudgeon.

“Go faster… We need to-“

“I know what we need to do!! And it isn’t rush in blind to an obvious trap!!”

Those locked eyes widened, but not in surprise. More at the refuting of that grand demand. That needed show of force for everyone to just accept that this wasn’t blind, this was justified beyond reason. But Aegis had heard it loud and clear, and was having none of it. That carried claw tensed, grip fluctuating between that physical demand and not hurting the one innocent to it.

“I can see what he’s done damnit!! I felt what he did!! I’m seeing way too much to be blind to what needs to happen!!”

“Then why are you rushing off like you’re the only one burning up inside!! Why are you losing yourself to this again and not even trying to ask for help!?”

“BECAUSE THEY’LL ALL DIE!!!”

The velocity turned to a crawl, the pair left in the silence of high altitude. The weight slowing Aegis down easing ever the slightest bit.

“They’re all dead. The whole fucking Terrace Outpost is gone. Kineticlysm, Sonic Fletch, that radioactive idiot whatever the fuck his name was! They’re all dead!!”

That grip couldn’t maintain its restraint, claws narrowly digging into the back of Aegis’ darkening hand. Her failure at stopping that thing finding its way to her second hand, but still drawing down what it could grab.

“And everyone else who goes will die too… And I’ll be blamed for it. And the Garkah will be blamed for it. And it will just the fucking crisis all over again! Nothing will fucking change!!”

“Then make it change!!”

The grip opposing his tightened, bones creaking against a fury he just kept being the target of. But this time he was going to feel what was fueling it. Concern and worry, all burning like a bonfire to keep her determination from sinking. To show Seth that he wasn’t the only one angry right now.

“I just watched you put a city block back together like it was nothing! Buster told us you revived charred corpses back to living breathing people, souls and all! I know you were too late to help here… And too far to save the others. But you can help us fight now!”

That grip, that connection demanding counter, that involuntary sharing of deeper thought. Aegis could feel the guilt stocking this anger, in too much detail than she’s been told. Like she was seeing what Seth saw, feeling what he felt, knowing just what he knew. And he could feel what she felt in kind. The sudden shock of realization, the familiarity with this tethering, the attempt to hold back. But that grip denied this restraint, she wanted him to feel just what she felt.

“Even if he was an asshole, I just watched one of my friends get ripped in half and turned to gods damn dust! Me, and the rest of the Elite! We all need this! We all need our revenge in this! Let us fight alongside you! So you can show them you aren’t like this fucking parasite! Show them you can be a hell of a lot more than just what your town became!”

The connection stayed a tentative hold, but Aegis could feel the fire that had launched him this far begin to throttle down. Down to a crushing weight of the guilt still unburnt. A weight that finally snapped the connection and left the both of them back in the silence of this flight.

This empty whistle of air being forced away and thrust materialized. Of throttled potential. The wispy white and blue surrounding them passing like solid landscape. A flat carpet of rolling hills below failing to keep a discernable pattern or reason. Just puffy air and water. Easing breaths and easing grips on both sides said enough, contemplation and planning silence was all they would hear.

Until that silence was broken by the drone of engines from the clouds below. A sign that at the very least some of Aegis’ demands weren’t falling on deaf ears anymore. A billow of clouds flowing in an ascending pursuit toward them drew her to bank off. Before the roar of twin jet engines broke the calm of this higher altitude.

A VTOL, the light variant the rest of the Elite were crowded into in order to get to park. Both doors left open and its hull left empty, save for the half stoic scowl greeting her and her cargo. Erdwut had followed alone, the only one left unscathed and ready for what was coming. And he knew full well what Aegis was planning on bringing onto his craft. The unlit handle on his belt at least showing a slight return of his restraint, but that scowl still bore more than enough to turn this into a very short flight.

Defiant though, she realigned and came in on that wide open door, Seth lined right up with the empty space opposite. Talons reluctantly touched down and claws gripped ready rails as the balance alarms signaled the depositing of this half ton of awkward silence. The sole mediator quickly landing down beside that scowling mountain. Trying to intercede before this VTOL became a battlefield and she was forced to carry three overly heavy passengers instead of just one.

“Where’s everyone else, I know Samurai’s got more swords stashed away?”

“They’re on their way.”

The grit in his voice may as well have been rumble being stymied below. Quickly turning to her and hissing out at least part of it before he blew up.

“Why the hell are we taking this thing on its word?! He just implicated one of our own in murdering hundreds of people! In murdering Hot! Why the hell are you believing him?!”

“You say that like you even really know the bastard.”

A growl only half directed but wholly kin to that grit trying to weather down his position.

“I saw the shit he pulled. The scheme he’d planned before ever running into me. He loosed Tango and his crew on his own trainees, set them up with weapons and suits to prove a point. He didn’t care if we got hurt, he didn’t give a crap if they killed one of us. He just cared about keeping the League strong or whatever the fuck his stupid ideology was. Never mind that he broke when someone too strong for him threw everything back in his face.”

That scowl hardened, Aegis’ as well. She knew there had to have been more but she didn’t think Para would stoop so low.

“But now… Now he’s just a fucking husk. A body for Resent to live in, to use as a conduit. His inability to take the justified punishment he was due drove him right into the arms of the one who drove me to break him.”

“Was that what killing Ziyou was… justifiable punishment?”

That scowl was nearing nuclear levels, hand gripping tightly to Eschenwald just waiting to light it and tear through this cracking peace. A peace gritting that maw doing its best to not to break it first.

“You already know I’ve accepted that! You know that guilt is already on me! But Para’s different! He deserved wor-“

“He deserved what!! Last time I checked you threw the first punch and nearly killed half the foyer doing it!! What’s justified about tha-“

“You couldn’t even give a crap that he-“

“ENOUGH!!!”

The VTOL bucked, the clouds rippled, the air simmered like it could ignite at any moment. Both breakers of this peace forced to reconsider their tensions as the fury in Aegis’ voice nearly brought their craft to the ground. And demanded heed more than Seth ever could.

“The both of you are going to shut up!! We are facing down a gods damn material hazar, parasitizing and eating everything it can get its claws into!! We have enough to fight as it is!!!”

The simmer receded, but its impression lingered and flinched that scowl back down to contained wrath, but added something more Aegis couldn’t give a damn about at the moment. Seth meanwhile was already beaten down as it was.

“We need to work out a fucking plan here or at best we are all going to end up like Ohmega… or worse.”

Seth flinched, looking her in the eye like he hadn’t heard.

“Yeah… he was on patrol when Resent hit. He survived, just barely. But… it’s not good.”

He looked down, almost looking for an answer himself, but quickly shot up with intent.

“How was he hurt!? Did he get cut or was it that beam! Was it like Buster or-“

“Whoa whoa, slow the hell down! What’s your point?”

“Anything Resent eats is turned to threading. The electron threads I told you about. It’s something readable, feelable, something he can take in.”

He gritted, balled up like he was reliving something.

“I took that whole damn battlefield for what was left in it. I felt what Buster lost, I felt all the people left rotting in the god damn dust.”

But he came back up with a shine in his eyes.

“But I didn’t feel anything from Ohm back there.”

Aegis was puzzled for the second she was given, before it was clear Seth was on to something.

“He was able to hold out against Resent’s pull somehow. Whatever he did is irrelevant, what matters is that he was able to.”

“But… hgrr he’s still missing a damn arm. He’s burned clear through his sternum.”

“I can fix that! And a hell of a lot more, but later! The point is if fucking Ohm can hold out against Resent’s powers than it means he’s still not proficient in them, he doesn’t know how to use them properly. How to focus. More than likely he wants to keep everything as it is when he fucking kills, wants them to suffer. Some stupid thing about making the world regret or whatever. But… But this means I can still fight him for everything he tries to take.”

That maw was almost smiling again, a ray of hope against a bleak slog waiting for them. But…

“But… Grrr! It’s going to take a lot of power to do that. He’s already drained everything from the area around him, and trying to match that will just leave a bigger hole in the ground than what he’s got. I’m trying to fix shit, not rip open a bigger scar.”

“Then why not use a bigger source?”

That ray of hope had dwindled, but Aegis nearly outshined it with her own determination, and maybe overconfidence. Finally getting dividends on her mother’s training. All those hours of high altitude flights and HALO lessons were about to pay off.

“I can’t promise it will be too much, but it will definitely be better than digging holes in the ground. I can fly you up to the ionosphere, let you pull from there to your hearts content. You’ll just have to hold your breath for long enough to get your fill.”

Seth lit up, scaly face finally getting that damn grin back. Though it quickly drew deeper, almost sinister in what all that power meant he could do. Just in time for the drone of their VTOL to be matched and harmonized. The clouds adjacent shifted and bunched, a formation of shadows like sharks below the water. The roars breaching the cloud layer in turbulent succession, condensation trailing and fluff spiraling away. More open doors, but compartments filed to burst. Three more light craft to add to the flight. And… and a lot of angry familiar faces.

Buster blocked up one whole side, sword gripped hard and heavy determination staring back. Samurai had rearmed, but brought along his son. In fact a large chunk of the reinforcements were…

“W-why the hell are my trainees here Erd!?”

“…You said grab whoever I could. This is everyone not on assignment or utterly under strength to fight. We lost that luxury to this fucking thing.”

That sinister smile lost its composure, staring into the condemning eyes of those he once trained beside. Hardest of all from Maya, something bordering on too much to take and too much to refute. The peak of grey hair cowering behind her more than signaling that David was here too. Unfortunately. Though their craft also bore Jacob and Zeleny, both huddling close to their comrade… and maybe a little too close themselves. M.J.D.+Z. was back in action and already seemed to worry him. Not liking him was one thing, now they had something to hate and fear beyond measure.

The VTOL opposite held almost the too obviously retaliatory. Phoenix Tech, Cauterizer, and of course Kabar glaring their hardest. At the very least Erd chose the ones most ready for this. But the bulk of the weight on that craft came from… Zeus’ Strike! Aegis thought he’d been sworn to retirement, but the fury in his eyes nearly outweighed the rest of the craft combined. He wanted revenge for his son, vows be damned. The last craft was filled with whoever they could grab, mostly medics and support staff to catch what they could… if there was anything left.

The force was stacked up at last and didn’t look very up for what was about to hit them. A feeling shared in that fallen scaly grin having to take all the condemnation he’d avoided till now. But something wasn’t lost yet in his mind as he looked up at the concern watching over him.

“He’s going to hit you all with everything he’s got from the get go. Resent wants to make his victims regret and despair, and a massed show of what you’re walking into is more than enough to him. And… and he knows it will throw me over… Leave me open.”

Aegis held back a smirk like her one original lesson finally sank in. But the dire mood certainly curtailed her enjoyment. Erdwut’s scowl only cementing that mood, taking the underestimation as insult to already perpetrated injury.

“But…”

That ray of hope wasn’t gone yet.

“That will leave him open as well. All that power building up in one singular place can’t stay contained, especially from someone with no focus. And he wants you all to feel it, to rue this retaliation. He won’t just obliterate you outright like the park. He’s going to take his time. That means I can grab hold of it. I can drag it out of him when he tries. But… that means me and Aegis will need to be damn near in space by the time you get in range to draw that fire. And I’ll be drawing on to a hell of a lot more power than I can split focus on. Are you sure the ionosphere can take the hit?”

“Hey the Earth’s pretty tough, and that layer’s got plenty to spare.”

“It’ll need to be and then some when I’m done with it. Then all that matters is getting Resent to swallow his own bait and get emptied for all he’s stolen. You can beat the shit out of him all you want after that. He’ll be powerless again.”

“Are you forgetting something?!”

That scowl demanded attention like ignored authority.

“If that thing’s going to strike us out of the sky then we need Aegis here to protect us! Her shields are the only thing that can keep it at bay while we land!”

“Then she’ll come back once she’s thrown me loose, I can fall just fine on my ow-“

“Not good enough!! Her place is here, covering us making sure that thing can’t escape! Again! Hers is the only power that can hold that line! It’s her duty to see that thing burn! It’s what she’s meant for! It’s her only purpose here!”

The air, the compartment, the whole damn flight. All of it froze like the pin of reality just dropped to the ground. Trained and kindred perceptions caught on like spreading fire, felt this sudden tension manifest like a renewed rising of wrathful condemnation. Like that near total command to society was about to repeat itself. A bristling, a danger, instinct driving all to fear for their lives for a single skipped beat of their hearts. But all those eyes weren’t looking toward the source of that previous demand, because even Seth was caught in the lurch of this fear. Because all of those eyes were turned toward a more relatable focus… toward Aegis.

The air was simmering around her, burning without heat like it wanted to flee for its inanimate life. Flee from the fury wrought by words said one too many times over. Expectations dropped on her too many to count. A kindred fury Seth knew all too well. Knew its true source at long last. No more wondering what happened to the girl that pulled him out of Berta anymore. She’d been put through the press of someone else’s authority too, and felt the weight of society far more than he ever did. Now though, she was liable to break just as he did, with far more pressure released and far more to break than just bones. But unlike him… she had a release all her own. One he’d held off on for too long. It was about time he told her what Mrs. Mahan had told him.

“I get the feeling she’s the only one who gets to dictate what her purpose here is!”

That frozen moment of fearful reflex broke, all the strain and weight piled against her feeling the out suddenly opened to it. That scowl was lost in that beat of fight or flight, and unprepared for Seth to take a tipping step back toward the bare sky around them.

“And I can tell you right now her choice is pretty clear from here.”

That tower of scales freed himself from the ready rails, from the VTOL’s bosom, and loose himself to gravity’s terminal embrace. All too knowing what Aegis wanted to do. Without word, without a retort, with nothing but that condemning glare brought to bear on Erd, Aegis stepped back to the door. And dove back to the less oppressive sky. A freeing of all that weight, of expectations and demands. A half second of freefall and a whole life time’s worth of training brought back from underneath half of her power set. A claw extended up to meet her renewal, kindred freedom at last found. But that claw found its own condemnation manifested, the industrial vice grip crushing it hard and locking its fate to hers. Just because he gave her an out didn’t mean it was her choice to break it open. It was just too long coming. That simmer still exuding off like steam directed out and around, real thrust brought to bear were control once held sway. A tension mounting, terminal velocity redacted wholesale, the only force left compressing the world above into swiftly compounding gs. As that true flight at last had its day.

The on rushing air, the limits of sound folded over innumerable times. All were broke harder than she’d done in a long time. And the full extent of her power was finally forced upon those who’d rather she stay in her lane. The formation buckled as the living hypersonic missile just released between them launched itself into the stratosphere. Cargo in toe and just as unprepared for the shock awe he’d allowed.

Wind force, gs, everything refuted by that perfect shield fell upon him. A familiar regret of buffeting force, with added dislocation of his carried aloft shoulder. And probably his spine. Quickly that oppressive pressure wave, adding crush to inertia, deflated as the air thinned with altitude. A new horrible feeling as every breath failed to elicit the proper reaction it should. And a light headed daze took over where cracking joints and over tearing skin used to fill in. But this was at least just as manageable. A slight pull and condensing of dispersed pieces. Just enough to get him through the upper mesosphere. After that though, he just had to hope he could hold his breath.

The layers flew by with renewed velocity without the adjoining friction, and just as quickly the temperature fluctuated to its extremes. A cold frost cut at Seth’s focus, a heat spike burned his leading edges, and another frost spell refused him the chance to compensate. But beyond the shifts and beyond the gradual suffocation, the world below grew smaller and smaller. And the sky darker… and brighter. The near half day sun flaring over their turned backs, the stars outshined in the void expanding all around them. And the sky below them stretched out and down with a rainbow gradient unnoticed noticed from the ground. Like the whole spectrum mixing into the black of the vacuum of space.

A calm emptiness. Almost claustrophobic. Preventing focus away from the only thing left in contact. Demanding a renewal of that tethered sharing. Aegis was proud, beyond elated. She’d almost never gotten to let loose from under the thumb of Erd’s ridiculous ego. His almost jealous demands of her to hold back and let others keep their pride in the face of someone who knew limits they couldn’t even fathom. She felt free, even if it was just for a few-

Her head shot down at the flat smile eavesdropping on her personal moment. The connection equal again. And not so silent as that smile dimmed to serious resolve.

‘I’d hate to ask it of you, but they’re still going to need those shields of yours.’

A though transmitted, passed through the connection with direction and purpose. Just like talking to the Garkah. Though they weren’t as pissed looking as Aegis was. A reluctant smile the only consolation he could give as that too turned down to even more serious demeanor.

‘They’re going to need you down there. Not just to keep Resent at bay.’

A feeling passed along, almost shared but too complex to fully grasp. A tether spooling out to keep them connected, and a plan understood in its gravity. But unrivaled in its necessity.

‘Just know that this won’t be enough. This is just to keep everyone alive, to keep this from becoming worse than it already is.’

That passed along thought directed back down, a hazy picture shared as best it could be. A bright shining jewel far too deep for a simple pull. A learned and concocted possibility, but one all too destructive to just be done on a whim.

‘If it must come to it, you need to protect them. I only need a bit of it, but once I start pulling its going to get hot… quick. Make sure they stay in the shade. And make sure they know full well that this is no longer their fight. Just… promise me you’ll protect them.’

That silent expanse sank to the bone, concern overtaking prideful break. A long moment of empty space, no air to carry anything back along, no expertise in throwing thought around. But still… the squeeze of her hand on his said enough for him. And the addition of the other read loud and clear that this was her stop. But not his.

Shifting thrust ripple the near vacuum, and new inertia pulled him aloft, all as Aegis stared her begrudging response into his eyes and threw him the rest of the way to his higher destination. Back to the void and front to the Earth he was doomed to fall back to. But given one last look of silent acknowledgement to see him off. A plan set in motion. And shine already starting without her. One all too clear to Seth as he took in the world he’d have to borrow from. A red glare already flaring its surface, built up power destined to burn away everything in its path. And the faint omnipresent shine of that jewel buried at its deepest point. Something he feared seeing now more than ever. A level he didn’t know he had, one brought about by this sharpening fire still burning inside. Something too much. Something more to overdo. But something he had to be prepared to do if this proved not enough.

But those thoughts were meaningless right now, hurtling into the barrier between sky and void. Pointless in the grand scheme of the rest of the world needing protecting from this rising menace star. A world streaking around him as that barrier finally found its intruder, and found the power that permeated his very being.

The void at his edges, both of his vision and his leading, shined. An aurora of more expected locale, but closer and disturbed into a wake of green and blue. Swirling spiraling particles, illuminated ions too energetic to sustain balance. A dazzling cut into the invisible, the waters of the void bearing their own bioluminescence, their Saint Elmo’s plankton. But most importantly, the power awaiting him at this border between. This no-man’s-land before the vacuum of space inhabited by nothing but the cosmically lost… and abandoned. So it was about time they found some new friends.

A pull, slow at first. A gentle ripple of overly disparate matter. The faint lines of jagged threads spreading out like a deep sea feeder, glowing brighter against the disturbance of their chosen food. Wider and wider, brighter and brighter. Threads finding substance and jolting points, braiding together the mass they collected on their paths. That they rallied to their cause. That they turned to laws foreign and broken but all too needed now. All the while their new found influence brought the world to a new brilliant focus. And lost his momentum to the pull of that hopefully ready world.

The world zooming back to size at Mach speeds. More air to compress and crack, more speed to pour in with less weight holding her back. Aegis was speeding as fast as she could to make sure her other charges didn’t die without her. Thin stretched clouds were holed and rippled, condensation trailing her all the way to breathable altitudes. The flight demanding protection hadn’t slowed down, and their target cared little for subtle welcomes. The clouds before them were reeled into billowing walls, everything pushed away and bunched up into mountains of white and grey. Even the sky knew this was not its fight.

One by one those distant black dots, defiantly charging toward their deaths, disappeared into that wall of cumulonimbus. Refusing to even wait for the safety demanded of the Aegis screaming to their aid. A thought running through her head and hands, the shapes to start and spread out from. No time to hesitate and start small. Her own crossing swiftly cut into the eyewall reversed, path caved through and disturbing reality seen with her own eyes at last.

A crater, a hole, hills cut apart and forests burned away. Square miles of empty… scarring… black. A pit of drained away earth sliding away into artificial void. A wound torn into the land, onto the very planet. Nothing left of the base once sat in this pristine yet hollow wilderness. Now rendered just hollow. Save for the glare of that menace star burning at it center.

The same star brought to focus from on high. Far too much focus and far too much high. But this couldn’t be wasted, this fury brought to bear needed far too much. For all the strength it brought up, for all the detail it colored in, for all the instinct it awakened beyond what could normally be achieved. But damn was it burning away at everything Seth had. A corruptive will seeping through, to just blast it all away, to be done with the condemnation and bullshit and constant unending crap!!

Yet the near empty calm of this border was too much in its own right. Too much to avoid bleeding retrospective. That wasn’t him… that wasn’t who he wanted to be. He had to focus, take the burning of his woes, accept them and stock them higher. And build them up to see that bleeding wound in conscious existence for everything it was. For the monster it was. And for the energy it greedily clung to and glutinously consumed. For the threads that wove it all together. The same threads that wove him.

The same threads amassing their charge, spreading wider and wider, pulling everything they can, and building it all up into single spooling cord. A physical construct of solid energy, a physical extension of that siphoning pull. Something barely contained, something barely possible. A harpoon to skewer and a line to draw. To throw down and break open the sky. And the will to tear every fractured tarnished soul awaiting their doom in the living event horizon seeking more to feed its hunger.

A hunger flaring at the arrival of its next meal. The world already slowing as the danger closed too near, perception driven on and on and foisted for every grain of sand it could offer. Aegis screaming too fast to accept the grim possibilities fueling it this high. The horrifying possibility that she was too late to save her comrades, her trainees, her friends. As that flaring star finally flashed. *ZZAAHHOOOWWwww* A single jagged line burned into the air, an amplitude of insane proportions only stymied by the frequency of its spread. Miles of plasma tendril slashing toward them. Slow enough for even the slowest amongst them to catch up and see. To know their end was hovering over them like a Sword of Damocles and there was nothing they could do to stop it, or escape it. But she had to try.

A cutting burst, an explosion of sudden needed acceleration, and a refusing of that despair. Hands shot out in that round set shape, orange wall of hope and defiance flashing up just as quick as that bolt of death sent its way. A straining of focus, of too much too fast, but Aegis had to do this. She had to go all out on thi- *ZZAAZZAAAAHHHHOOOWWWW*

That jagged fire split apart, separate bolts amped like forks around a boulder in their river. Around that flashed up shield. More than one target, more than one under threat, too fast. Too damn fast. Then she had to be faster! Thrust shut off to shatter inertia, breaking that quagmire of air and time. A need to focus everything, to pour it all and split it apart. Both hands shooting out separate, rounding hard against friction and momentum, straining physical limits of mortal anatomy. Tendons tearing, bones straining, an already fraying suit flaying apart. But she had to do everything she could. To put up more shields. To put up twin barriers of translucent denial of this mounting despair. Wide enough to refute, to oppose it all, to stop it all dead in its- *ZZAAZZAAZZAAZZAAHHHHHOOOOOWWWWWWW*

Unstoppable path. More arcs, more forks, more paths ripped out of the air turned to roiling plasma. Even this denial too slow, the speed poured in not enough, the hunger too great to be refused again. That grim slowness dragging Aegis down to the same, pitiful speed as all the rest of her powerless compatriots. Shock, fear, wrath, sorrow. Faces stopped in this quicksand hourglass of overextended time. Of outpaced speed. Of near total disparity in perceptive acceleration. But cruelly spared the finality of an instant death, forced to feeling the overlong moment of it drawn out to its own limits. The cruse of being too fast of mind.

It baked the despair in deeper than the rest. It forced every detail into the mind before it can be burned away. It piled on the regret of weakness, the rue of ineptitude, the sorrow of vanity and pride. It forced them to see their lives for what they were… Pointless. Empty. Hollow. Just as they will be.

“When I’m done with-“

That frozen picture of despair. That supposed regretting detail. That expected ruing finality stopping everything dead before it can all end. It wasn’t there. The encroaching plasma crackling toward her, burning its own connection into everything by simple proximity. Those refuted shields bypassed and ignored, the brilliant star burning the world apart. It should be too much to take. And yet, in this infinitely short lived dance, she was not the partner awaiting his move. This was a waltz of binary fury. The land irradiated red by that dying hole in reality. And the sky blazing blue with its counter ripped into that falsified truth.

And thrown for all of its worth to this world. Threaded electrons hundred fold deep, corded together and locked in tight. As much power as could be wrung from this field of lost energy, tied together and braided with everything Seth could spare. Everything poured into this one… massive… shot!

A bolt of lightning to rival Zeus himself, a strike too true to leave to anything but that broiling homing rage, and a line drawing it all back up to the sky. A meteor from on high. A spear piercing down from some inscrutable heaven, a break in the sky to tether these binary stars to one another. And right this disparity against this frozen despair. This hungering emptiness. This out of control resentment. This skewered abomination made to feel its crimes for all he’s got!!

*ZZZZEEEEEEEEYYYYYYOOOOOOOHHHHWWWWWWWWWW*

Armor, threads, flesh, weakness, body and soul and soul and soul!! A wrenching, a pulling, a sudden denial where victory seemed too inevitable and close! Memories and trash, scraps of being and scraps of matter ripped apart and congealed into power. Sickening waste, empty existence, broken consciousness, and abhorrent resentence tying it all to his whim…

“NO MORE!!!”

Those bolts, those amps, that baking in frequency. Those jagged edges bending back, coronal plasma under new management and empathetic purpose. That menace star’s gravity too extreme to refute, and this new will too powerful to deny. A sheer moment, one last bout of time, one last hold of that miniature system in a mind too fast for its own good. Before it all became nothing but a jagged pillar to the heavens!

Power, energy, built up and stolen consumed without right. All of it turned about, turn to the sky, and bolted like the lightning it wanted to be! A blinding white, red corruption mixed with blue subversion. The air, the Earth, the damn fabric of reality shaking with the force unfitting of mortal limits. A column of plasma burned into every eye not close tight against its arrival. The sky ablaze with reunion and rendezvous, those lost and lonely ions given more than enough power to light the atmosphere in auroric majesty. Into titanic pixie lightning to rake the heavens. And burst with disconnection from this run away process, heard like a stray though through still tied tether.

‘SUCK ON THAT YOU FUCK!!!’

Grandiose refractions and splayed out tentacles of pure unadulterated skeptical. That burning sky left to accept its gift of confiscated energy, as its adjutant was left to the gravity he’d been given over to. That blinding pillar of pure energy, that raucous trembling of frightened reality, the tightened sights on those spared from this wrath, and the mad lolling back in challenge to his terminal velocity. Seth was fucking ecstatic!

Doubts, worries, adverse possibilities. Everything fell away in that rollicking free fall from low orbit. A substantial chunk off the top surged his nerves, a more than victorious outcome surging his dopamine or whatever the hell Garkah had to feel this god damn great! He’d worried about lighting the atmosphere on fire, cascading the ionosphere into nonexistence, going too far and punching a hole in the crust, or not getting enough and just feeding more power to that piece of powerless shit stapled to the ground down there. But all of that was gone, contrailing away at terminal velocity as that pillar started to dim in its oh-so brilliant shine. He’d found the antidote to the fire burning him alive. The adrenaline of victory washing it away into something bordering of a high.

Though there still was one worry left to him. One that came back as the world grew smaller and more physical… How does he land? That grin turned flat as his aerials and rolls leveled out to the reality of slamming into the ground.

‘Uh… crap…’

A retrospective not falling on deaf ears. That tethering connection becoming shorter as a stern face flew into line with him. The message having to be repeated, yet again, that he’d over done it a bit. Yet still he smiled at Aegis, too much enjoyment kept bottled up by the constant reminders of his guilt and pain to just hold back. Her eyes rolled with her flight path, a hand grabbing up his and slowing this scaly menace to society down before he ended up a pancake.

Because they still needed him here. They still needed him in this fight.