"Heroes!! Supers!! Survivors and sufferers of a crisis WE ended!!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So long as this thing draws breath!!!"

A sudden shift in the air and those collective glares turned almost feral. Teeth gritting to snarl, stances shifting from tension to all out aggression, powers flaring across every spectrum. And that smile lost a slight degree.

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

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

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

"We must accept…!! That we missed one!!

"And end…!! This malignant terror…!!

"Once and for ALL!!!!"

The lines erupted, yells of war to try and break what was fragile. To prove their desire to crush all before them to dust. To prove to themselves that they wanted nothing but their enemy's death. But all of it struck mute, even as Erdwut pointed his empty hilt straight into the air, like the starting flag of a race to hell. The guard glowing with its tethered heat, the will inside gathering back its form of subjective truth. The yells desired for its gleaming return, for it to fall on their target to signal their release. To bring this wait to its rightful end.

And so it fell! Blade of that his Eschenwald released and returning in its smooth pure edge! A unison tension, triggers pressed and ground cracked, weapons locked and powers sent ho! All of the League's brought together might set upon one target painted by the crowning edge of that perfect gleam! But all of it…

Was so fucking pointless!

*BRRFWPTCRAKCRAKZAPFWOSHAKGRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHHHHHH*

The storm loosing as tidal wave, froth of lead preceded only by supersonic arrows breaking the ground ahead of the crunch! Dusty crater turning to mulch as rounds tore through it from all sides! Clouds of evaporate and debris coloring obscure its wake! Energies of all shades and textures tracing and frying, a rainbow of elements falling upon this hated center! The lines releasing, the circle closing, massed firepower withering their accursed target away! Their yells lost in the cacophony and their colors muddled by their charge! But their target still there in the catastrophic crash! A vague shape caught against backing misses and through fried portholes. And all of it too fast to follow!

This world, Seth's world, was utterly his and yet filled to its brim. Bullets and arrows stealing his air and matching his speed. Beams and rocks and constrained flames cutting through his dance floor. Talons scathing and moving him from one density to another. Twirling and spinning as it all washed upon his shore. Too damn slow to weather what was his.

A spray from that minigun barging in as three supersonic arrows screamed at him for ducking between them. Magnetic pylons stabbed the ground, tried to box him in as he weaved and slithered between a radiation beam and a burst of rainbow fire. But no force held them as they snapped apart, true body sweeping through under a solar ray. But there was only so much dodging could do.

Or care to do.

An explosive volley, coordinated sight clearing, slow moving targets. A swivel through another arrow volley and a burst of punches crunched their fuses and destroyed their momentum. And still set them off. Cloud of his cloak exploding in on itself, as another supersonic arrow tried to cut through it. Straight into Seth's hand. Heavy, metallic, loaded for bear, and immediately darted into the ground to throw away its utility. A spattering of debris buffeted the front line charging in from one side as an arm guard cut the edge from a burst of gunfire. Scales turning the lead to spalling, a true replacement for that tainted armor.

A brace of rocks and metal spheres shattered upon clawed fists as they tried to cut in, friction melted shards and more dust for his curtain. More shrapnel raining over that leading edge, but their disregard was terminal. A freezing beam lathed away at open air as that radioactive idiot tried again to boil Seth in his own skin. This dance was getting annoying, but at least he had some partners getting into step.

The hail ceasing as the first sharp edge made its call, came center stage to end his shadow show with spear point raking golden arcs.

'Such poor manners!!'

A clawed fist shattered it from heft to face, and the ingrate who thought he could use electricity against him was socked one! The cloud parted violently by his twirling body, one mark recoiled but this stage was a true ballroom now! A singing blade skimmed over Seth's back as dropped a knee in step. A hammer brought wide met an unyielding palm as its golf swing failed to follow through. Back met body as Seth kicked up from the ground, other arm wrapping around the handle of another relieved weapon as that hammer was ripped away. New, flashing steel glanced off the block as it was kicked up in line, the other talon pulling Seth back down.

The ground exploded back at the disarmed flank behind, as he launched low and swirling with his stolen hammer wide. Catching a shield edge on as it rounded over, above another spear point set to stick it to him. Straps and metal rent in kind. A burst of braking force addled dust and the hammer passed between hands. To flatten this true hoplite's point into the ground! A swift talon snapped his borrowed handle from its weight and freed it up for offense. A claw swinging it head level as a staff tried to do the same. Its wielder missed by a mile but found a talon on her chest and the other claw on her staff. Seth kicked off and sent her into her flank's second line, already one down with a splintered handle spiraling off another head in parallel.

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

'They'll never learn huh?'

The clouds billowed and roiled with muscle and metal, flashing with power shot and put from all sides. The lines stalled as the expected crunch was kept back. So many combatants for just one target, and yet space was enforced too wide. The occasional body flying out over, any number of weapons, or the remnants thereof, ducking heads. But these massed numbers ineffectual served at least one purpose, to keep Seth in place.

Aegis gritting as she advanced with her team, the splinter of a relieved bo staff thunking hollow between her and Erdwut's laden scowl. An image ran in her head, a shape to form, a shape to trap and end. Before he could even say the words she was dreading.

"Formation… K…!"

The Elite matching Erd's snarl, but more raucous of fervor over that eventual end. Samurai had already used his opening moment, and yet was rebuked. And so was lost to his own cold focus for a strike that would not be avoided. Maglev had just been flat out denied his contribution, unable to muster further as his quake became too hard not to notice. And so went unneeded. Hothead had worked up the courage and cracked his knuckles as they flamed out under the part he would play. And with little more than an acknowledging turn of his wildly contorting glare, Kineticlysm was allowed his rocketing into the fray. Like he was the closing act. And not just the last pawn.

An act that deepened Aegis' grit and winced her held off apprehension. Her part in this the hardest to stomach. Because Formation K was something no one should see light of. Least of all the one would have to hold it all together.

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

'Wait!! Shit!! That's Kineti-'

The guard slammed to double, talons staked down hard, and every thread of his accepted being braced. As a fist laden with who fucking knows how much stored up energy tore through the air apart! The clouds keeping his floor in line fleeing in fear before it even made contact. Because its force was already released like he'd barely trained his restraint in the slightest.

A wave of air tried to stay its place, but only succeeded in bunching up and cracking apart as contact finally came. The crater clouded more natural for the nearest second as all the air ran for its personified life! All its stored water squeezed out and boiled in an instant! The last of the dustbowl roadway shot with it! Force tearing the opposite side asunder in shadowed limit, decimated what was left of the buildings not covered. A bomb of raw energy released at point blank, with an equal reaction expected across an absolutely ecstatic catharsis now flying away off of his own attack. The dance floor was emptied, splintered, and wholesale-

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

As recipient of all this raucous release felt the sum total of it all, a lucky break to still be able to feel. Bones just a little more than dust and splinters, scales ripped and cracked on his own leading edge, yet the sting of healing realigning bone told him enough. And the few feet of rut torn into the bedrock exposed just giving him some pride. But an odd stillness came over, as Seth felt his forearms sizzle and resolidify. A stillness he could only respond to with hesitation.

A presence he'd expected at some point, but this felt worse than it should. Because her eyes weren't on him anymore. The guard flung open, arms returned to his sides whole, but found only grit and grim to face. Only an opposite set of arms forcing themselves down, a determination shadowed by wind loosened hair, and an orange barrier falling between them with none of his hesitation.

Seth felt that ingrained comfort press down against him, that odd feeling that kept happening in the worst situations. But this orange field of translucent energy just kept having an effect on him. A safe feeling, a grounding, a reminder that pulled him out of the wreckage of too many lives. But…

But now it seemed less inclined to spare him.

Not that his life wasn't currently in an absolute state of "shouldn't be standing" but… The force behind this protective barrier, and its shape, held a very different message for him. It towered high, a bulbous cylinder that tapered slightly into a recessed flat top. One slowly unfilling with holes. But Seth realized quickly that the air movements had shifted when the field came down. Aegis had learned to change her filter, and he was in a glass jar.

Yet the shape was too specific, the base wide and still changing. Tubes were stretching out from four sides, more perforated walls set in as they extended out toward… Toward four all too similar heroes. Hothead the most obvious tell of this planned end, the other three fire supers only cement around the brick. He wasn't in a jar, it was kiln, and so sat in the center of an all too callous need to burn him alive.

Aegis' grit finally had its truth expressed, if there had been another way she would have taken and demanded it. But she was the only one who could stop him in his tracks, the only one that could lock him down, the only one who could see this through to the end. Now that the impossible case had been realized. Now that it was true he was a monster like them.

Breaking her down as the inevitable weighed too hard upon her. Unable to look and see what she was allowing. He'd been her student, he thought she was a friend. He'd suffered as was obvious and yet somehow lied beyond all means and measure. Had brought back this world's most hated enemy in pure embodiment and more. Or was always one in the end.

A single phrase was all she could muster through the thrice spurned hope that burned to ash around her. All that could eek out in this crushing loss of understanding. The only thing she could say.

"I'm sorry."

But, despite the dire arrangement revving to peak, that inevitable conclusion that had to occur, she'd never seen that changed face not smile. None of the malice she saw that day, none of the pain broken and burning the world. That red eye never resurfacing in this true form, fury held short in the face of this overwhelm. She knew what he, what they could do, but that carnage was not revived as well.

A field of weapons broken and disarmed surrounding both in this overaging moment. A storm of attacks weathered with seemingly nothing but pride as a casualty. Despite the fact that all who had come wanting this, wanting what should be a death he could never escape. Burned to ash and dusted like all the others that had suffered before him.

Despite everything that should drive him to yell out and defy, to show his rage justified against the end, to struggle with every fiber of whatever being he was now. Despite it all stacking against him…

His eyes were calm beyond their stellar past. The beast he was, hardly related. All the twisted, locked expressions of his kin lost to that maw almost smiling down on-

"No Dana…"

A few eyes and ears flinched as it opened, voice completely the same as it had been despite the new anatomy. No blitzing roar or harsh crush. Just that same mild manner so unfit. But the brightest reaction… the most hollowing snuff… bore from the sole target of its regretting smile down.

"I'm sorry."

Aegis' eyes were wide, stuck staring at the obliterated ground before her in shame of what was needed. As a name… her name was said by something, someone, that shouldn't even know it! Few ever cared, if they even knew it at all! Only family and official paperwork. But… but… but…

That list had an outlier.

And intersect with the reality looming over her.

At one… single… point.

That threw this world into a grim slowness all her own.

As he took a step toward her without a care for what was ahead.

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

"Hey! Didn't they tell you it's rude to tap on the glass?!"

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

"Why don't you just die with some… di…!"

Yet his tirade faltered, as those horns rippled the barrier like it was the surface of a placid pond…

And passed through like it truly was never there.

The maw, the head unflinching, blue lit hazel eyes kept open without even the slightest hint they were under threat.

A last grand step pulling the whole of this monstrous being in totality, no resistance, no push against, no rebuking stalwart force. Little more than an air veneer where vaunted invulnerability once stood! Little more than filter against possibilities not a one of those eyes watching could rectify! As they turned wider than fear, wider than horror could drive them to be! All watching no longer could deny what was happening before them! All this gathered force and wanton death could no longer hope for reprieve! As the shock and awe of just a few steps taken tore worlds apart!

As that last set of eyes turned up to look that living reality in the snouted face. At the gentle smile he wore as his tail slipped free of her demanded, limiting purpose in life. A shattered look all that could be mustered opposite as she looked up…

As she was reminded of that day with all too much poignancy. As her grand power was disregarded, as a single emphatic choice was rendered mistake folded beyond count, as her own memories failed her duty and renewed her guilt upon that gentle, heavy smile. The same one she saw, on the boy she saved. Who told her a truth she had never thought true. Sinking that memory to horror, as it turned to smirk. And bore those teeth to the ocean of expectations denied. A simple message written in the flash it took for it to freeze the world solid.

"My Turn!"

Synced perceptions shattered, exposed bedrock bulging to explosive catastrophe and that wanton reality loosed! No longer bound by anything!!

A streak of atomized crater slammed into a building providing firing positions, a wall disappearing before the myriad of trained perceptions could even realize. No one even had time to react before both stories shattered upward like the ground no longer wanted to carry it. Bodies thrown high with their position's obliteration, and doubly flung as that streaking force blue shifted and slammed all of them before the debris could even start to fly. The last ricochet, haloed by tearing air escaping it, blasted that blue blur back to earth. Right into the crowded lines behind. Incline atomizing in a wave of cries masked by aerosolized ground, velocity too much for even the sound to travel in time. Recoils too slow, perceptions desperate to catch up, but that blur gave no concessions.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Steaks, tears of the air flared to azure plasma, careening through the line. Slamming into heroes too slow to realize. Barely followed by the only one who could gain any parity. But all it won Aegis was a powerless front row seat, as that blurred form kicked off of a redrawing Blade Tone with force enough to cave a bunker. Parity gained and resolving, streaks turned to scales wreathed in electron apocalypse. As she finally caught up to the lightning bolt that was Seth kicking Maglev in his horrified face.

Body contorting, crumpling, and disappearing from her parity. Becoming nothing but a blue blur all his own, directed straight at the opposite building bearing more gunners and archers. Detonating it like it had been struck by a lateral meteor, but igniting in that same plasma electric chain. Tracing through the debris to every body tossed about like toys to a child. A taloned foot glassed the dust beneath as it killed the momentum it still had, but unbound reality was far too far gone to just stop!

Vast swaths of the world were nearly in total standstill, velocity of mind even outpacing velocity of movement. Plenty of matching perceptions breaking the landscape amongst their slower compatriots, but all of it was utterly outclassed and utterly outgunned. Percentile of percentile, Seth was in overdrive, power amplifying everything to a degree he could barely make sense of. And maybe pushing it a little too high. But who cares?!

He still understood just what he was, just what had to be done to end this! Even if it was a little overboard for how much he was enjoying this! The scene sped back up, perception managed and contained so at the very least this wasn't just pure slaughter. That baking talon on the ground pulled him down and locked, there were plenty more heroes to kick the shit out of! That lock released and more ground was destroyed as he slammed into the lineups finally acting upon his rampage. If only for show.

Seth streaked across the crater, lightning violently ripping off of him like excess steam from a pressure cooker. Another talon stopped him dead in front of the super that was hurling rocks at him before, a few forming from the crater around his hands. His feet suddenly stopped touching the ground as a kick spun his whole world sideways, and a plasma coated fist came down on his rocky barely formed guard. Crunched into the ground and alone before he could even express the pain he was just imparted with.

Another ranged super, the radiation thrower, suit no more than a hazmat knockoff. He was hovering too low, not trained enough to keep up, as the ground ahead of him exploded and both taloned feet pressed into his chest and lined him up. A flash of supreme disapproval was all he got before being launched into the rubble of the destroyed gunnery position, but not without his own blue streak to carry him off.

Phoenix Tech, apparently among those higher percentile, was already jetting in to intercept the opposite reaction locked Seth. But speed like his was disadvantageous without control. A twist, a claw wrapping around an extended arm trying to light him on fire, and Seth was on his back and shifting his jets before he could cut them. A rainbow flaring missile crashed to the ground with a little extra push down, and a nice standard fist locked in as Seth was gently catapulted toward Hothead still unable to handle reality. A summary subsonic conking brought his denial to an end. If not at least to just a well-deserved bout of unconsciousness.

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

A terse moment of extrospection allowed some their chance to reacquire Seth again, as he slowed his overdrive over Hothead's crumpling body. And alongside the catastrophe that was Erdwut. An image rendered to complete dust, a defense he'd relied on and demanded made out to be nothing at all. His wrath was boiling, Eschenwald rippling erratically again, his eyes burning at Seth's almost smug visage, but his hesitation was insurmountable. Something in him was wholly and truly broken. Pride probably. Seth couldn't really parse it. But then again he did hold off this moment a little too long.

'Maybe I overloaded him. Can't have been good to have all that shit bottled up huh?'

But this grand mal hesitation still waned regardless, muscles tightening and stance pulling toward him. Though not quite because of his reforming resolve, or the dismissive shrug Seth gave to reignite his ire. It was because Kineticlysm was making his presence known again, air roiling and distant dust cloud outpacing its shock wave. It was because Samurai was charging back in with an expression truly fallen. The world was slowing back down under mounting drive, and yet another message was written on Seth's face.

"As if this fight was over already."

Simultaneous reactions converged on him from all sides, but the pressing demand of the living bomb about to smack him in the face certainly took precedent, if not refutation. A talon hopped him sideways and obliterated the bedrock, the opposite knee lining up on Kinetic's gut as his diving attack suddenly had nothing to hit. That upward knee cutting wind from sails, and sending him skyward before he could add a few more feet to the crater's depth. Necessary collateral damage reduction out of the way, the drive geared down and a bit more of an even playing field was put forth.

As those returning players hit the stage. Swords swung away at him yet again, trained steel from Makani and the ever telling Eschenwald from Erdwut. But this time their speed was much more respecting. Though Samurai presented more of an issue than Erdwut.

The sandwiching blades sliced empty air as a talon finally touched down, dashing Seth as deep into Samurai's stance as he could get. Close enough to feel the ire coming off of him that he could not escape from. More betrayal than pure wrath. An unfortunate reality he didn't have time to reconcile as follow through faster than respectable. Horns were dulled as Seth ducked for his life and twisted back up, blade already turned back to slice his head off. A claw parried, trained steel was thrown high out of the one hand bearing it, the other already stabbing the holdout blade underneath. The other palm accepted the pain carried in it, steel stabbing through scale and bone with no resistance.

Feeling the loss this true form had dredged up and made all too close. That bleeding claw slowly wrapping over the guard, brief silent acceptance of the condemnation due. One family taking away another's. But Seth wasn't going to die for accepting what he was, determined eyes paying for the blade taken from its owner. As his inciting smirk lost out to empathy hoping to be kindred.

Samurai seemed to wince in understanding, his disarming a poignant notion dodged back from. A begrudging trade for the moment spared to know his intent in this truth, and to clear a path for Eschenwald to try and slice him apart. Seth ducked again, true blade searing the air above him as the trained holdout was removed from his hand. Another quick sign as to his intentions, that holdout was stabbed into the ground as Erdwut cut his failed inertia. Another taloned foot finalized that holdout's end in this fight, burying it deeper and locking Seth on top of it, as the main blade glinted in its downward path above. Erdwut sliced down on yet more empty space as his prey refuted him again, with momentum too much to stop. Before gleaming edge buried itself in exposed bedrock.

Another moment's wrathful cloister was all the time needed, as that skyward blade flashed down through Eschenwald's. Samurai's steel harpooning through like the spear of a god, locked both blades down in this chosen bed. Probably startled that will controlling it. That reignited wrath tried to defy its disarming, but a curled talon spinning down quieted that struggle. By kicking him square across the jaw. Another summery lights out for another too dangerous for other's own good. Seth landed down with another scathing talon slowing his spin as Erd crinkled off his stuck handle, grip too iron to be sent flying after all this. Just adding a dislocated shoulder to the jaw.

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

"AHy YeAH AAAAAHH-"

*CRAKRacrac*

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

*BWWAKkk*

"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?!"

"Hugghh…" 'Fine then! Let's end this already!'

The world was awash, waves beating against the already broken, forcing a powerless weight onto one unable to carry it. The bedrock rippled beneath knees that had fallen to them, the frightened air tousled hair out of it disregarded tie, radiant heat singing from odd angles, cold bursts pricking counter, hairs stood up and fell as electricity ebbed and flowed. But nothing could break what was already broken.

Aegis' stare locked straight ahead, at the clean cut circle indented into the center of the crater. A line crossed that should never have been possible to. But there it was… and there it blared at her with every excess wave of force being applied. The world around her blurred and hollow, lost to her in all ways but knowing it was there. But that streak of blue persisted, circled around her like a shark cutting through a school of fish. Hunting, tearing them away one at a time.

Ahead of her, the moment played on repeat. That line crossed over and over, a mistake years in the making burning guilt into her unlike she'd ever felt before. A guilt that flared with every hit and discharge from that cruel streak. Each hit more lethal than the last. Her mind spiraling, protecting her from seeing what was happening to her fellow heroes but constantly visualizing what those forces were doing to them. Things she was all too familiar with.

Bones shattering, flesh tearing, limbs crunching, organs rupturing and painting this chosen field with grotesque red. But the worst of it… the worst feeling in the world… was seeing Seth's smiling face. His old face, muted in relief after telling her his truth and forcing her to bear it. At all but admitting to being the monster he was now.

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

But… for some reason… a small pang of relief awakened beneath it all. A disgusting, unpalatable relief, but one that Aegis had unknowingly hoped for. For far too long. A chance to be recognized for more than just a few millimeters of energy, for more than just her passed down power. For more than what others had told her she was good at. It rose up higher from the flaring guilt, but only added to the spiraling madness hitting her mind. She couldn't stand that she felt this way, that her buried hope was allowed up through something like this. It forced her head down, her eyes closed, the world away for just the one moment she needed to stop the pain.

But a quiet moment was already upon her. The waves had stopped, the elements stymied, the ground still, save for two beats that struck close by.

She opened her eyes to the ground ahead of her, that burned in line still demanding attention. But where hallucinated memory accompanied, now the truth was stood behind it. Back facing, talons etching bedrock, scales shifting over closing wounds, tail draping and keeping calm. And hazel slit eyes looking out over the crater that they had made and filled with his enemies. Eyes that shifted back, and fell upon her over that damnable flat smile.

"Why…?"

A question was all Seth got in return. One drenched in venom and nitro, liable to explode and tear any reason away if not addressed to satisfaction. Though, this was expected wholeheartedly. You can't leave the truth under wraps for so long and expect understanding at the drop of three fourths of a ton of armor, least of all from the only other one who knew what was hidden beneath. The glare up at him was the same one she gave before, when his mind wasn't just his and her pleas were lost because of a single word. And a lot of bodily trauma and…

Okay even Seth regretted his facetious nature.

That smile wavered into a sigh that bore more than Aegis could know, there was a lot of time for self-reflection when your brain was still coming off of overdrive. But in the end, there was little to reflect on, since all he really did was admit a whole truth for once.

"You… want the long version, or the short version? Because I don't think-"

"WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO ALL OF THIS!?!"

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

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

Seth was taken aback.

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

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

"I mean… it just doesn't feel right to fight you after dropping… this on you. Avoided it as much as I could, but one truth begets another. I was hoping you would have remembered me sooner, but I really didn't want to push that. Because… you seemed like you had been through a lot. But still… I knew you would at least understand better than most."

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

"Do I…? Did I ever!? If it wasn't all lies then was it all excuses!? Just cover!? Just some bullshit to make me feel sorry for you!? To sympathize!? Was it all for this!?!"

The air was alight, burning glare not so metaphorical, the orange flare in her eyes wanting nothing but to bifurcate the hell out of him with as many slicing shields as she could muster, no matter how futile it really was.

"Was it revenge!? Was some twisted plot!? Was it because we killed all your people!? Is that what this was all for!? Is that what all this death was for!?!"

But it all fell upon light realization rather than disappointment. Washing over him as yet another reminder that he'd over done it again… but the consequences weren't as dire as she believed.

"W-wait? Hold the fuck up! I've been fighting like three battles at once here! Because half these idiots would have lopped each other's heads of and a few would literally have preferred to destroy everything than to see me exist at all! That one guy could have given us all cancer for all I know!! And in all of that, I'm the target of everyone else's revenge!! I'm not stupid enough to just keep that cycle going!! I've had enough episodes to fucking deal with as it is!! I finally have control of my life! Why would I kill anyone here!?"

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

"You… LOOK AROUND YOU!!! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!! LOO-"

But that fury had directed its ire to the world around it at last, allowing Aegis to finally see what had really happened. Her comrades certainly far from dead, far from defeated in this war. The battle sure, but not the war.

Bodies groaned across the crater, holding arms and guts, soothing legs and joints, or just laying where they fell in unconscious heaps. Not a drop of blood spilled upon the cleared bedrock and asphalt strata, save maybe for the bloodied nose here and there. Even the rubbled buildings that used to hold gunners and archers were far from a grave, the few able to walk stumbling out with nothing but internalized pain and some petrifying cases of vertigo. Because… because that was what it would take to stymie this war… Before it got out of hand.

Not one of the heroes even left standing on their own two feet could put up a fight again. No bodily injury keeping them at bay, nor breaking their stride or curtailing their retaliation. Simply the unhealed pain of what could have been. The Garkah taught Seth to heal wounds after all, but the pain was still harder to counter. And he had way too much time and experience now with putting people back together.

Aegis thought back to the blue streak, the wreath that followed Seth as he tore through the lines of heroes. The same streak that chained through them. The same thing that literally brought the dead back to life. That returned whole bodies from the complete disintegration that he'd almost lost himself to. She turned back, ears full of their pained grumbles, contorted fury dissolving from paradox after paradox and just on the verge of total mental breakdown. Yet all she turned back to was that same gentle smile across that abhorrent maw.

"W-wha…? How…?"

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

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

"Wha… Then what the hell was all of this!? What the fucking hell Seth!!"

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

"Just… something that had to happen in the end. If I had kept up this lie for longer than I did, things would have gotten a lot worse. A whole lot worse. It's… hggrrr! It's really fucking hard to explain! Let's just say you were right all along and I've been fighting myself… A lot! Though, you probably saw that before… Hgguuggh!! Fucking hate this!"

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

"I… I admit I'm shit at keeping things easy and contained. I overdo things. I… I go overboard when the situation calls for more subtlety. And can't fully grasp everything I'm capable of. It just kinda… happens. Things come together in the worst ways possible. After… the worst things possible. But this had to happen at some point. This- All of this, had to happen eventually. It would have happened eventually! You said it yourself, these assholes don't like it when the boat gets rocked. And I went and capsized it! But… but showing that I'm… this… was the only way to start making things right. And to put the demon everyone thought I was to rest. Or at least get one part of it straight. Out of me anyway. That it meant causing you this much pain…"

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

"I'm… I'm sorry. I'm a selfish asshole aren't I? I should have just told you when the course started, should have just told you and let what would have happened happen. Probably should have done a lot more now that I think about it. But…"

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

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

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

"But… hehhh… there's never enough time to say it all, huh."

The groans surrounding were easing in that shadow as well, the ground was starting to rumble slightly, even a heat was starting to radiate. The heroes were waking up, and the next battle was rising to the war started.

"Here… I'll explain it all later when you find me again."

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

"WAIT!! How the hell am I supposed to do that? Para destroyed everything!"

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

"Why does it always has to come back to Para? Okay…!"

But a smile wormed its way back.

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

But that smile bearing clever hints was melted by reality.

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

Before Aegis could try to ask, try to stand up off of her piecing together, Seth took a loaded step back. Swiveled like friction was a plaything overdrive was life. Cracking the bedrock as that horrifying form disappeared, dragging the air with it as force refused to be held back. Crashing a dust cloud off and away, as he finally escaped what had come for him. Followed closely but so very too late, by the pop of a rocky prison and the growl of consciousness returning. A dusty rain and flanking heat surrounded Aegis as she knelt in marginal regain. Kineticlysm stomped the ground in-

"MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

A dragged out fight denied to him before he could let loose. Erdwut on the other hand simmered in his tossed melt, mixed with more disappointment and malice than before. Barely anything left of his stoic mask but what congealed at the surface without a target to point all this fury at. Even as it stared down at the one whose set purpose was just shattered apart. And yet let the one who broke it all get away.

But Aegis just stayed staring, locked straight ahead at the empty space that once smiled back at her. That boy smiling as they laughed off her mom's over protectiveness, that smile beaming at her with a bit of blood still trailing out in victory, that-

*yyeeeeOOOOHCRAkk*

That toothy grin that just fucking filled back in its space!? Why the hell did he just come back!?

"Sorry, completely forgot to do something!!"

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

"Can't just let all this go to waste!!"

Stoicism and frustration melted into a flash of fear as that palm disappeared in a growing ball of energy too bright to look at. Erd tried leap wholesale with his own fire between his fingers. Kinetic tried to restart his own personal, fight hungry, war. And Aegis tried to reel away, but she only succeeded in falling backward as Seth brought that palm down… Slapping the bedrock with far too much power.

The flash disappeared, spidered and zigzagged through the crater in every direction in the instant it grounded. Doubling and tripling across everything. Heroes still pained to the ground caught in recoil, others mid leap for cover over the lip or just escaped the explosion more than oncoming. Yet none of them could do anything to stop what was coming, as that maw curled up in an almost playful smile. And all were loosed from their earthly bounds.

All feet, butts, backs, and knees, groaning bodies and desperate flights and demanding charges trying to stop what was already begun. All were lifted from the crater floor, gravity not so much mitigated as refuted. A storm of arcs lifted them up, cutting any momentum and dancing to ground. But in set patterns and with set purpose.

The arcs spreading through the air indecipherable, faint ionization snaking and ricocheting about in all directions. Bolts scattering through the caved in ground and razed buildings, both long destroyed and recently rubbled. Seth refusing to leave this destruction on his already stacked tab, so all threads were spreading for one grand reconstruction.

The arcs flared and an en masse motion took their places. The dust in the air, the dust in this crater, the detritus of excessive cost and kerfuffle. All of it rippled, receding, filling in with material both recently dissipated and borrowed from those burdened with excess. Atoms dragged away or back to their places, given back their glue and form to undo their dusting. And there were plenty of caved in sewers open for repurposing.

Weapons, stabbed into the ground for safe keeping, and to keep collateral damage down, were flung out. No sense burying them just so their wielders could dig them up and undo this all. The scattered structures at every corner floated up, reformed, blocks and chunks hovering back into place like an autoassembling jigsaw puzzle. The plasma fusing hiss of caught air between accentuating the heavy thunks of massed rebuilding.

Last but not least, a few repaired transmission lines. Eagleville had enough problems without leaving them in permanent blackout. The crater ceased to be as asphalt recoated the surface, in better condition than when it was destroyed.

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

"Whoo! There… that's better…"

Arms hung at his sides and a few haggard breaths are all the overly surprised and discombobulated heroes saw as they picked themselves back up, paradox highlighting for a great many more. Though a paradox few cared for elaboration with. The glares started up again, powers flared and weapons freed and scattered were reequipped. That playful haggard smile drew back and turned about, legs locked back down to get him the hell out of here already. A letting loose and spray of fresh asphalt in their faces.

Aegis included. Smacked in the nose by a chunk dividing line. Left in the reel and hacking at the more mundane all were dust left in. That form disappeared for good into the sprawl already too stressed. Leaping away and gone before any could mount up anything close to a pursuit. Leaving the beaten heroes to feel… whatever it was they could after all this. Left to pick up the pieces.

At least the ones still left out of place.

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