Wind coaxing a blasted landscape back to life. A refuted beating sun keeping the cold mountains at bay. The grit of dusted existence everywhere it just should not be. Haggard breaths and burning overused lungs, muscles drained of everything but the barest strength necessary to keep moving. Bones feeling like lead. The weight of a world given back its safety. Happiness not included. But that borrowed slab was as it stabbed into the blackness and all that weight leaned against it. A crutch, a moment to just breathe. To consider what had been done, what Seth done. To take it all in. And to understand what it meant. Because his duty wasn’t over just yet.

But Aegis could see nothing but a victory hard fought. The same rasping breaths a little too synchronic. That damnable tether releasing as its barer finally let it go. A relinquish she was hesitant to copy as her own borrowed blade stayed its edge at that scattered pile of disassembled abomination. Circling that faint glow still bleeding through the dust trying to bury it away. But even her adrenaline was falling as that glow stayed its soft slow death. A fact mirrored in the simmer receding up that translucent orange sword. Its will finally giving a damn about its wielder now that it found her. A fact only adding curmudgeon to her already blistered attitude, that stainless surface being stuck into the ground not far from its distant kin. With more force than civility, but still the same crutch of relief offered despite the judgment of the inanimate. Her duty was up, and she didn’t really know what came next.

The trepid steps of the outmoded behind, looking for openings or conformation of this battle’s conclusion, only hurried Seth along with his recovery and part to keep playing. Snout raised up to that warming sun for at least a bit of shared power for what he had to do. Only lowering as a centering exhale, weight pouring off, claw flowing away from the handle keeping him up. An even glide ahead to his fallen fraternal twin, to his corrupted cocoon, his former life’s work turned weapon against all. The eyes of everyone still reeling at the expenditure, at the devastation, at the broken promises and the broken molds. The eyes of solemn fought back hate, of refuted thankful fear, of begrudging thanks for giving them this justice. Of still stubborn wrath watching for even the slightest misstep. And of tandem relief regrowing into concern. All of them watching the only one left responsible.

“What now? Is it done?”

Aegis’ words were a world away but clear as the day they spoke down to him. Her gaze offering more than questions but finding none of the strength needed to voice her worry. This had to be over, or else there was nothing either of them could do. She followed him all the way down to the heap that was Resent. A still straining knee meeting the ground just short. His target all too clear. Seth brushed away the dust sucking at the crimson glow, scooping up the broken plate that used to cover his left eye. The faint itch of that scar, the feeling of it opening without him in control. The darkness. It was all so small and far away now. The past. Something more that needed healing away.

“Seth…! Is he gone…?”

He turned it over in his hand, the inner layer of Ark metal matching nearly to the void. Crisscrossed in calcified veins like fossilized flesh. A pliable medium trying to make a body all its own. Yet despite the damage there was still the slightest fraction of that burned in message from Speaker glowed its soft light at the broken edge. Words ringing through despite their state, all the rest of the Garkahs’ hopes coming through everything he’d had to do to get here. He knew this had to end, this had to be done. He had to do more than just destroy and kill. He had to make this right, make this resentment his and let it go on his terms. Because in the end it had always been his.

He stood up with his cargo, steadying resolve staring down at his palm. An over long moment tensing his onlooker, as the tether once shared was already being missed. Intentions uncertain, possibilities allowed rampancy, innocuous gaze rendered a lapse in judgment no one should be allowed in this moment. But she would not need to be in the dark for so long.

“There’s just… something I still have to do.”

“Wait… DON’T!!!”

Because he was already slamming that laden piece of metal on to its rightful eye. And letting that parasite have just what it wanted.

A burst of dust and static life. That heap of broken armor jumping up like an ambush predator from its sprung trap. Claws and edges, hooks and threads, the void come to retake its original body and make this world know regret. To turn sentiment to rue, to take back power stolen, to rip these fools to shreds with their own reluctant ally. To make them suffer!

A crawling clanking spread over dusted scales, tattered metal piecing itself into place like so many times before. Scorching its way in, wrapping its being around the already occupied. Shin and knee, hip and spine, shoulder to every bleeding crack in that terrifying helmet. Those once receded horns split into place over their real counterparts, tail segments fit together over their stilled former occupant, claws whipped out as forces foreign took control for themselves. And that eye opened to the red of its ever existence.

No longer form fitting, no longer contained and concealed with the ambiguity of outward aesthetic and motif. Already drained power leaking out from between shattered and cleaved through plates. Oozing crimson connection barely able to keep the armor in place on the body it was always meant for. Turning already nightmarish visage into patchwork solid soul. Dragging its charge about as it rippled and fought for continuity. That red eye blaring at Aegis like it had always been, those threads snaking beneath cutting and spreading through the body horrifyingly visible in its cracks. And that whipped up left arm rising with that wanton need for more despair.

“Ish shold you…!! Ihh don’sh die!!”

Its words were splattering static, buzzing gaps in that misaligned maw. Talking for itself without a need for the one it sapped. Helmet peeling off and canting toward her like an astral body made physical and eldritch.

“Buhsh you… do!! Ahnhd you will ALL SUFFER!!!”

That claw peeled open, arcs dancing between, blood of false being in step with its discharge. A cacophonous charging whir, a clanking violent wind, power ripping out and through and feeding one last stab at thee who felled me. Every shellshocked onlooker frozen in their hesitant tracks, every disarmed hero stuck on the conveyor to the slaughterhouse. Forced to watch their only hope be dashed away in front of them, all because of some stupid attempt at redemption. Aegis couldn’t move, her expenditure catching with added tripwire. She couldn’t escape fast enough even if she tried, her reflexes shot by these burdensome marks of authority. All she could do was stare into that red glare, feel that torrential buzz fill every nerve beyond its ability, and watch that other claw… snuff out that plasmic death knell.

That red glare dimmed away, that tremor of tensing waveforms subsided, and that bleeding ooze receded in. As this rogue soul was called back to the body it so grievously wanted. Those drooping drooling plates softly snapped into their set places, that malicious cant retracted back over the head it was supposed to hide, and that widening eye at its center fit over the one it thought it forced closed. But the reality of the dawn that was yet to shine fell over that glare. As that real maw spoke with its own overriding tone.

“No… this is not the end. Not yours… Not theirs…”

That reined in claw folding in at his side, its calming twin mirroring thus. All that oozing excess pulled inward, all that malignant threading drawn in to the place it wanted to spread. Drawn out of the one who wanted to spread them.

“I meant what I told you before… I’m not going to let you go.”

That eye soon lost composure and stature, its spread falling inward like it had chosen a real black hole to subsume.

“Not now…”

All its light, all its burn, all its being collapsing away until there was nothing but that one scared eye.

“Not later…”

Whipping about seeking escape, looking for help, for anything. But only finding what it had long wanted.

“Nor ever… again!”

A pull, a flash, and that ever shining crimson glare burned into all-consuming blue. A new gravity, a burning halo slicing the blasted ground in every axis, a final total to that promise now kept. All those cancerous threads, that scorching siphoning energy, that being of near perfect disassociation. All of it falling into the void it had coopted too much before. All of ripped from the armor it stole. All of it re-tuned to the tone it had ignored for too long. All this energy, all this power, all these memories used as structure, all this being made wrong. All of it was his now to rend and rue. All of it was Seth’s to redeem and judge as he saw fit.

The outside world would hold no sway, even as it felt the unfortunate effects of this needed total pressure. Dust swirled in irking concentrics, bodies lurched and grabbing to whatever there wasn’t to hold on to. Aegis was buckled into her new blade’s handle and dragged for all she was worth. But this fearful return of terrifying power was over before it broke more. Another lurch of full of emptied air, replaced by another familiar light. The burn and sizzle of restoration.

Broken plates and shatter servos. Torn open layers and horrific patchwork. This visage, this terror, would not stand. Burns from every corner traveled those lines. Azure stars of self-weld and self-repair. The body over this body, this weight adding to weight, just more that needed to be healed and returned to what it once was. The dull shining dark spot in everyone’s minds. The broken open box from which their nightmares spilled out yet again. But now… No more.

The last burn cut high, smoking air trailing off as that helmet sprang back. This being in double a statue of unbroken stature once more. Dark eyes sucking the light away and threatening to open, to flip the coin to the truth of this show of force. Aegis couldn’t help but tense, to stare at it, to hope beyond hope for it to open with that powered plasma blue. To prove his success, to prove the end to this already, to make all of this worth it so they can stop. But all she got in return was that eye staying its emptiness. Even as that helmet turned toward her.

Fear, resolve, whatever was left ripped that orange barrier blade out of the ground and into stance. Whipped her eyes to the other object within reach before that turn could complete. That over large handle receiving a new hand as Buster’s goofily named sword was burst from the ground as well. Twin swords… twin wills feeling the fear between them. Another level too much to just bare like fangs, a terrifying need that she couldn’t hope to live up to. So obscene call to too many arms. Just more distractions only making Aegis regret her inability to end this before it started. But all of it only mounting strange as that darkened armor… kept turning away.

Turning about, all the way around. Back at the scrambling unarmed and fear filled unprepared. Samurai and Kaze rushing to add what dissuasion they could but knowing this was something more than manageable. Least of all as that restored behemoth took a step toward and dropped its hollow gaze. Glass and bedrock rippled into circles crunched under armored talon. The empty Earth echoing every agonizing step. Uncertainty driving tension, tension fueling fear, fear flooding out into uncertain possibility. No one knew, but no one wanted to find out in the instant it would take to break this cycle. To collapse Schrodinger's laceroid into reality they couldn’t help but fear. But all that fear found no end to its ascension. But those steps found their upon that wave scorched center. As that gaze tracked down all the way to that obliterated ground.

A moment, a pause, a stalemate only adding more tension longing to snap. A silent dread dropping everyone back by inches at a time. Scraping the dust beneath their feet, cracking the glass at angles wanting to flee and charge forward to give that chance. The wind was cruel, that taunt line plucked. But only allowed to play its unnerving tune as long as it took for that head to rise again. And its claw to rise with it. To tower over everything. And burn with a familiar overpowering light.

“OUT OF THE CRATER NOW!!!”

All that fear and lock and rearguard sacrifice snapped apart, broke into sprint across every once frozen hero. The Elite knew firsthand what was coming but the urgent demand in Aegis’ voice tore away any doubts in the others. No heads turned, no time spared, just a mad dash to get the hell away as that light grew brighter across their backs. A lucky minority, Cauterizer and Zeus, already out with Para in toe. Zeleny had Jacob and David by the hands and Maya was booking it as fast as she could before Buster scooped her up. Erd snatched up by Phoenix before he could relapse in stoic defiance. Samurai and Kaze too fast to need worry. Just leaving Aegis to cut and fly with her own twin cargo. All while that light crescendoed its own magnetic tailwind.

Coronal flares filled her peripheral, that same torrential buzz blew away everything but, and the weight of this damn vibrating sword made getting to speed a class in utter futility! Dust trailed as simmer poured out, dragged away from the conducting sword in her other hand. More pressing need and more delay not fucking needed right now!! The others ahead dead sprinting and fleeing with everything they had, but her in the dust and flare and feeling regret of other people’s fucking property! And feeling that reconstructing palm drop all the way to the ground. And the gravity of that meteoric strike upon this titanic drum.

The crater heaved and split with burning white zags, with force enough to drop it deeper than it already was. But instead… it rebounded. The crater bucked and walls of dust and stone and rock shot to the sky on either side of her. Filling this darkness with more actual shadows. Arcs of pure electricity racked over head as those walls found their level and kicked Aegis up from the ground roiling under her. That simmer found its catch and speed finally fought all this abstract weight to get her the hell out of this flash filling in pit! A turn over aileron to pull that sword off its side, to give her the chance to see the raucous heart of this effort clear. A storm of bolts and aurora, solidifying Earth towering over. A dynamo of matter restoration just waiting for the moment her flight cleared that- *POOoofff* Lip! Altitude shallowed and her back struck it, but she was clear and that storm was free to rip asunder no more.

Like panels from a stage, her roiling rap lifted up to level with its brethren grades. Dust folding over and over again, dirt and rock reforming into what they used to be. That center self-spotlight lifted from the pit it kept to, a pillar to complete this reflattened land. That storm spilling forth and casting out to the still blackened circumference, racking through the unclaimed disintegrate like a road scraper to a pothole. The darkness failed, turning brown and green and grey and lifting. Concrete and top soil and trees and asphalt. This emptied pit torn to ashes rent back to what it used to be.

Grass spread over gentle gradient. Trees fizzled into towering being. Concrete layered and recovered in grassy camouflage. Lines and reinforcement cut into the smooth nature. More concrete towering over in strong sturdy blockhouses. The base that once vaguely hid in this empty foothill rose back up in its shadows. And with it the center of that restorative storm. That blaring palm was full and grasping, waning the light around a solid shape now fading. That spear thrown taken out to leave nothing behind. That divining rod all the way to the core of this Earth pulled free to stop more destruction from coming to pass. And all the energy it carried used to more giving purpose. Fort Terrace now stood again. Yet stood quiet as that palm emptied and its burden dissipated to the rolling thunder against the mountain wind.

Its bearer, that shining armor staunch before the gate it never crossed. The air wavering as excess steamed away en masse, a mist clouding up from every blade and leaf and concrete pour. Those huffing their excursion and flight to safety at its edge, the knee high clouds billowing away before they could take away the sight. All was still, stopped. Another restoration of damage done. Another proving of that wanted goal. That atonement. But still that armor stayed dark in its mist unnerving. Aegis stabbing upright with both borrowed blades in unfortunate ready. But silent hope not so silent.

“Open blue…! Please… please let them be blue…”

Her lungs burned yet carried her tighter, her arms ached yet pointed those blades with intent. That cleared sun beginning its wane overhead. The eyes on her flanks locked same as hers. Another tension, another stalemate wanting to snap. Another dread risen when it just should have to be. She shouldn’t be this scared, she shouldn’t mistrust him on this. But there was nothing else allowed until…

Until that armor glinted in that early afternoon sun. That metallic form turning to face its comrades or enemies still. That locked on head calmly rising to meet all this fear in stride. And those hollow dark eyes… opening their vibrant plasma blue.