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 static. The ground under foot doing its level best to dance to it and failing hard. Dust caked foundations, concrete and piled emptiness. All rippling with that tone. That deafening hum that those inexperienced could only feel as a buzzing crash against their shores.

But Aegis felt it, knew it, could all but drown in it as a torrential overlong moment of perceptive backfire. Drowning in sound she recognized, only turned up too loud to ignore as static. The sound heard over and over, time and again. The sound of Seth shattering the limits everyone kept thinking he had.

This reflexive parsing only just joined, Erd and Samurai and Buster alike in this slowed down world rumbling out of control. 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 one 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!!"

"PAAAARRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

The moment, the reflex, the air itself, the ground, the buildings, this finite reality! Everything was demanded to change with a single overwhelming command, so that this unimaginable anger wasn't seen as the antithesis to everything good in this world! But only the ultimate call to bend before being broken!!

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. And taking up everything it dared leave to rot!

Screaming, fear, pain and emptiness! Horror locked and molten agony! Dust to dust and yet knowing its shapes! Its forms! Its being made real and electric! All condensing and uptake, all exhumed and refused this horrid rest! Becoming pure coronal flow arcing up through what was left beyond this blackened radius. Pulling skyward like a dome of glass kept it at bay. Before folding back in to its screeching bright origin.

Right into Seth's calling hand.

The one burning a new star between its fingers! The one gripping tight to a whole city's worth of power taken to fill! Like everything that had happened replayed over and over again in new radiant light! So this star could fall on this bleeding scar needing to be healed away!!

That same feeling of weightless conveyance, of getting pushed out of the way so they didn't getting buried in the reformed ground. Those mountains of concrete roiling like landslides going the wrong way, separating and shoot up to reform like pieces of a puzzle too complex to just redo. The ground rippling like a sifted sand sea, repurposing 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 manifest hell needing to consecrated!

New 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, unknowing grass easier to restore than the fragmented leavings of this immature 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. No one cared that all that was scorched had been unburned. All eyes were locked on the totaling of reality's course of action and reaction. 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. Another power up but more selfish. 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. Just like the menace that had shot away already. But now 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. There was no time given for Erd to retort, for the chain of command to be yanked to heel. Only snapped free at every link! 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 to overdo it all over again!

Kadia's downtown disappeared in a blur, the clouds gathering above 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 meant to catch you out!!"

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!!

He could claim righteousness all he wanted. He could scream and shout loud enough to shatter concrete. But she wasn't going to just let him do this. That carried claw tensing as her will sank in, grip fluctuating between physical demand and thinking she wasn't able to handle him.

"I can see what he's done damnit!! I felt what he did!! I saw 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 demeanor. 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 be 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, minds and all! I... I know you were too late to help here… And too far to save the others. But you can help us fight now! You don't have to be alone in this!"

That grip, that connection demanding counter, an involuntary sharing of deeper thought. Aegis could feel the guilt stoking 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. A sudden shock of realization, a familiarity with this tethering, an 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 godsdamn 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 to 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 all they would hear for miles and miles on this empty course.

Until that silence broke to 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 and stance still bore more than enough to turn this into a very short flight and a very long fall.

Defiant though, she realigned and came in on that wide open door, menacing drag 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 three quarter 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 with the rest we had available."

The grit in his voice may as well have been the rumble of a despised magma cap. Quickly turning to her and hissing out at least part of the pressure 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. Seth still too down but not to be ignored so easily.

"I saw the shit he pulled through what Resent left for me to find. The scheme he'd planned when I refused to just give up. He loosed Tango and his crew on his own fucking 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 wanted it. So the League would be stronger for it or whatever the fuck his stupid shit was!"

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 kiloton 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 didn't even give a crap that he lied about every-"

"ENOUGH!!!!"

The VTOL bucked, the clouds rippled, the air simmering 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 screaming to ground. And demanded heed more than Seth ever could.

"The both of you are going to shut up!! We are facing down a godsdamn material hazard, 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 first response when Resent hit. He survived, but just barely. 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 tries to eat gets turned to threading. Th-the electron threads I told you about! Something readable, feelable, something that can be taken in. It's how this entire shit started remember!"

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 goddamn 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 only he could say.

"He was able to hold out against Resent! Against the crossover it was trying to use as a way of consuming people! Stop himself from getting pulled apart and reformed into what it wanted him to be. 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 the sternum!"

"I can fix that! And a hell of a lot more, but later! The point is if fucking Ohm can hold out against it, than that thing's still doesn't know what the fuck it's doing! It doesn't know how to use its own powers properly! It uses the same method I did to revive the survivors from the Docker warehouse! The same general method the Ark used to turn the Garkah into energy beings! But more than likely it doesn't understand the nuances of... everything! It just wants to take what it wants when it fucking kills! Wants them to remain in the state they are in that moment! Some stupid thing about making the world regret being spared from him! But that's also how it makes more of itself, gains mass in a way. It needs emotions that transition into resentment of some kind. It feeds off of emotion just like any other laceroid ever did. And it's preferring utter despair at the moment! So... So all this means is I can still fight for everything it 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 already got too much power. Any sort of protection is going to take more that just isn't there. If what it showed me was right, the battlefield's already too damn gone to do like I did before. Inanimate reconstruction is easy but people are too damn dense to just leave to chance."

"Then why not just use a bigger source than local matter?"

That ray of hope had dwindled in speculation, but Aegis nearly outshined it with her own determination. And maybe overconfidence. Finally getting dividends on more of her mother's training than just intelligence gathering. All those hours in the upper atmosphere and the subsequent 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 heart's content. You'll just have to hold your breath for long enough to get what you need."

Seth lit up, scaly face finally getting that damn grin back. Though it quickly drew taut... than deeper. Almost sinister. Just in time for the drone of their VTOL to be matched and harmonized. The clouds adjacent shifting and bunching, 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, compartments filled to burst. Two more light craft to add to the flight. And… and a lot of angry familiar faces.

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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 recruits here Erd!?!"

"…You said grab everyone. This is everyone. All those not on assignment or utterly under strength for this fight. Half the damn B's are recovering still, the A's are near open revolt because of the oversight frenzy going on. And ever since the news hit the mainstream, the villains have been coming out of the woodwork in droves. They think we're weak. So this is the only team we have. We lost the luxury of numbers and experience to this thing. So it need to all end here."

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 much caring for him was one thing, now they had something to hate and fear beyond measure. And they were being pulled into the fire they didn't deserved to burn in.

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 some that were 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. A wanted revenge for his son, vows be damned.

The force was stacked at last, but was nowhere near 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 as he looked up at the concern watching over him.

"Resent is going to hit you all with everything its got from the get go. It wants to make you feel regret and despair however it can, and a massed show of what you're walking into would be more than enough. And… and it knows that will throw me over… Leave me open. The bastard still wants me back."

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 it open as well. All that power building up to the surface, in one singular direction. It will require more than it can manage. Especially from something with no idea of how to focus. It wants you all to feel, to rue this retaliation. Resent won't just obliterate you outright like the park. It's going to take its time. That means I can grab hold of whatever it throws. I can drag the power right out of them like I did in Eagleville. Leave it weaker. 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. But it'll get it all back and so much more. So all that matters now is getting Resent to swallow its own bait and get emptied for all it's stolen. You can beat the shit out of it all you want after that. It'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 on this team!"

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 fucking times over. Expectations dropped on her too many to count. Shoved into a place like it was all she was meant for.

A kindred fury Seth knew. Knew 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 vector brought to bear were restraint once held sway. A tension mounting, terminal velocity redacted wholesale, the only force left compressing the world above into swiftly mounting Gs.

As 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 unleashed.

Wind force, compounding gravities, everything refuted by that rippling shield of subservient air fell upon Seth. The 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 flippant 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 unknown to the ground. Like the whole spectrum mixed into the black of space.

A calm emptiness. Almost claustrophobic. Preventing focus away from the only thing left in contact. Almost 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-

She shot her head 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 are still going to need you to protect them.'

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 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. Unrivaled in its necessity.

'I know that this won't be enough. Not to finish it. This is just to keep everyone alive, to keep this from becoming worse than it already is.'

That passed along thought directed back down to Earth, a hazy picture shared as best it could be. A learned bit of information made into a possibility unjustifiable. A bright shining dynamo far too deep for a simple pull, but she'd given him what he needed. A regret at feeling this way, all too destructive to ever smile about. But the hunger inside him couldn't have helped itself.

'When it comes to it, you need to protect them. I'll only need a bit of it. Like with the Ark, I need something to match what's flowing through 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. So please... 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. And the addition of the other read loud and clear that this was as far as she could go.

Shifting thrust rippled the near vacuum, and new inertia pulling Seth aloft, all as Aegis stared her begrudging response into his eyes and threw his overweighing bulk the rest of the way to his higher destination. Loosing their connection to let it all sink.

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 a shine already starting without her. One all too clear to as Seth took in the world he'd have to borrow from more than he'd wish.

A red glare already flaring on its surface, built up power destined to burn away everything in its path. A small light, yet so many souls burned into its making. But beyond it. Farther and deeper and so pure it almost hurt to bear witness to it. Already starting to touch its inner most paths and feeling its lowest extent, its weakest altitude. Till he connected with its streams and bore its faint omnipresent shine. The thunderous silence of a song he couldn't hope to challenge. Yet something he feared seeing now more than ever as that hunger spiked. A level he didn't know he had, brought about by this sharpening fire still burning inside and the rising to its field. Something too much to just not covet. Something more to overdo. But something he had to be prepared to do if this truly 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 a 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 miniscule cut into the invisible gasses that rose this high. The waters of the void bearing their own bioluminescence. A 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 each other. And 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, glimmering as they hit and stretched 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 this monumental cause. That they turned to laws foreign and broken but all too needed right 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 speeding as fast as she could to make sure her other charges didn't die without her. Thin stretched clouds holed, 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 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. Yet could not bear to not see it for itself.

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 cutting into the eyewall reversed.

Darkness and water vapor slammed into path caved through precipitation. Thunder and static raking but ignoring the intrusion. Fearful in its own inanimate life, of what disturbing reality was at the other side. To be know with her own eyes as the air screamed to true stillness.

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 plain hollow. Save for the glare of that menace star burning at it center.

Guiding them to die...

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, this want, bringing to bear what was far too needed. 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. That corruptive, seething hunger seeping through. Wanting 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, that was what used to haunt and harrow those already condemned. It was that piece, that chunk, that 'oaf' unbridled. That which he took into himself and laid claim to. What he…

What he had made into himself!

It was him, even if he didn't accept it. It was what and who he was. A deep down part baked into his soul.

One he needed and hated.

But one he could focus!

He could take the burning of his woes, this hunger to rip everything that deserved to be torn. Accept them and stoke them higher. Build them up to see that bleeding wound in conscious existence for everything it was. For the monster that it was! And for the energy it greedily clung to and glutinously consumed. For the cannibalistic 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. Building it all up into single spooling cord needing a shape. Some tacit attempt, a physical construct. Solid energy and physical extension of that siphoning pull. Something barely contained, something barely possible. But seen and remembered staring into that patriarchal vengeance. Zeus would just have to forgive him a little more. For copying and outshining his lightning bolt from on high. Because he need 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 away from that living event horizon! To show it what a true hunger was!

A hunger to free of its pain!!

A hunger flaring at the arrival of its next meal. The world already slowing as the danger closed too near. Perceptive advantage 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 recruits, her friends. As jet wash stung through rippled away air, as the storm abounded in droning cacophony. And 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 careening down on top of them like no Sword of Damocles could embody. 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. Far and away, closing the direct path that it could only take. A straining of focus, of too much too fast, but Aegis had felt this before. Knew this feeling in her very soul. So she had to go all out no matter the-

*ZZAAZZAAAAHHHHOOOWWWW*

And yet that jagged fire split apart in defiance! Separate bolts amped like forks around a boulder in their roaring 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 fraying, bones straining, an already worn suit flaying its seams. 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*

Its unstoppable path...

More arcs, more forks, more paths ripped out of the air turned to roiling plasma. Even this height, this denial too slow, the speed poured in nowhere 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 fools.

Shock, fear, wrath, sorrow. Faces stopped in this quicksand hourglass of overextending time. Of outpaced thought. Of near total disparity in perceptive acceleration. Cruelly spared the finality of an instant death, forced into feeling the overlong moment drawn out to its own limits. The curse of being too fast of mind.

Shared...

It baked the despair in deeper. It forced every detail in before it can be burned away. Piled on the regret of weakness, the rue of ineptitude, the sorrow of vanity and pride. As wrath was crushed for all its dared hide away. As they were forced to see their lives for what they were…

Pointless...

Empty...

Hollowed to nothing...

"Just as it all should b-"

That frozen picture of despair. That supposed regretting detail. That expected ruing finality stopping everything dead before it can all end.

It was not there.

The encroaching plasma crackling toward her, burning its own connection into everything by simple proximity. Taking what bore off those refuted shields bypassed and ignored, claiming all that this brilliant star wanted to burn apart. It should have been too much to take. Took much to surmount. Too much not to cave in and regret ever thinking they deserved to live! And yet… in this indefinite short lived dance… she felt no despair in its light.

Because she was not the partner awaiting his move.

This was a waltz of binary furies. Of two lost stars needing to rectify. 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 the real Zeus himself, a strike too true to leave to anything but that broiling homing need, and a line drawing it all back up to the sky! A metaphysical meteor from on high! A spear piercing down from some inscrutable heaven! A break in the sky to tether these binary stars to back 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!!!

*ZZZZEEEEEEEEYYYYYYOOOOOOOHHHHWWWWWWBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

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 ripping ripping apart!!! Congealing into power! Sickening waste, empty existence!! Broken consciousness, and abhorrent resentence!! All tying it all to the whim of-

"NO MORE!!!"

Those bolts, those amps, that baking in frequency! Jagged edges bending back, coronal plasma under new management! 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 it dared!!

Power, energy, built up and stolen consumed without right! All of it turned about, turn to the sky! 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! All shaking with the force unfitting of mortal ties! A column of plasma burned into every eye not closed tight against it! The sky ablaze with reunion and rendezvous more fitting a course! As that over bloated pit was popped for its excess! Those lost and lonely ions given more than enough power to light the atmosphere in their auroric majesty! Into titanic pixie lightning to rake the spheres! And burst with disconnection from this run away process! As high heard like a stray though through still tied tether rang!

"SUCK ON THAT YOU FUCK!!!"

Grandiose refractions and splayed out tentacles of pure unadulterated spectacle. That burning sky left to accept its gift of confiscated energy. Its truest form of rapture to a better higher plain. As its adjutant was left to the gravity he'd been given over to. That blinding pillar of pure relativistic jet, 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 needed chunk ripped off the top surged his nerves, a more than victorious outcome surging his dopamine, or whatever the hell Garkah had to feel this goddamn 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 wane 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 ecstasy.

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. Or mental connections. That tethering 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. 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. This was all just the opening salvo. To level the playing field flat.

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