Roxy leaped at Chevalier with such force that she created a brief shockwave. I had never seen her so enraged. A mixture of the threat against Clara, the destruction of our home, and the sheer gall of my brother to taunt us during combat.

Even worse, it was because he had taken her power away.

Something the knight didn't realize had been reversed until it hit him. Literally. Not at her full strength still, but it was enough to knock him across the ground. He slid fifteen feet, but remained standing.

I would have to pick her brains later, but I had a reasonable idea about how she got her power back. The whole time she clung to Chevalier's back, she had been holding her breath. Using the flames and pain as a catalyst, the super had focused solely on using the last dregs of her strength for one purpose.

She had turned her lungs into a kiln. A furnace. After assisting in the hobgoblin forge a few times, she had learned what it took to melt metal. The particles of the anti-super material in her lungs sank away into the lava she could barely create. How her internal organs survived the process was anyone's guess. It was then the simple matter of coughing out this slag mixture, removing most of the foreign substance.

It wasn't without downsides, however. While dried rock now pasted over the open wounds sustained during her plan, she wasn't healing. Her breathing was also loud and ragged.

Chevalier's boots flickered with energy, using rockets in a mockery of my V-Force power. He launched himself at the super and brought his fists down. The ground cracked beneath her feet, but she blocked the attack with little issue.

"Smarter than you look," he growled. "But even with this strength, it doesn't mean-"

His head flinched to the side as I struck it with a High Explosive shot. It barely scratched the paint, but was enough of a distraction. While he went to snap at me, Roxy hit him with an open-palmed strike of glowing amber.

The knight slid back again. This time, there was a clear handprint left on his dark armor. A slight indentation of grim silver against the nightmarish pitch metal.

"Do you know how many hours of my life I spent melting down that fuckin' material?" Roxy assumed a fighting stance. Her arms shook as globs of burning lava dripped to the ground in front of her. "I'll reduce you to slag."

"The only slag here is-"

A second HE shell pelted him in the helmet, cutting off his barb. My gun-arm rattled slightly. Not quite as volatile as Roxy's, and borne of exhaustion rather than rage. The day wasn't won yet, but the tables were tilting toward being more balanced. Without a way to escape, he might become desperate. If I kept needling him, his anger would make him sloppy.

Making a mistake against someone like Roxy was often short-lived.

Chevalier couldn't even accost me for my actions. The super was relentless, and pursued him even if he just looked in my direction. Her own exhaustion was evident in her attacks the more I saw. A rested, full-strength Roxy would have wrenched him in half or thrown him into orbit by now. At present, this slugging match was the best of her abilities.

My greed was biting me in the ass as well. Not only had I pushed my mind, body, and tech way beyond safe limits over the last 48 hours, but there was a problem with the loading mech in the warehouse.

Clara filled me in with brief details as another empty shell clattered to my feet among all the others. Draining the Foam loader completely had offset the weighting of that particular rack, causing a slight shift that had offset the adjacent loaders. Long story short, I no longer had access to the Tazer shells and about a fifth of the steel balls. Not exactly a detriment at present. Having only a single Sanguine stake left was unfortunate, however.

Roxy and Chevalier traded blows. Both so focused on the melee that I might as well not be here. I lowered my shuddering arm and sought another way I could be useful. While the knight made it out of each clash with a new slight imprint of the super's attack, she kept switching between lagging from exertion and refueling her power. As if the ebb and flow of the lava within her determined her energy levels.

Still, there was only so much damage either of them could take.

My brother enjoyed a good fight, but his patience was already running thin as paper. It would only be a few more strikes before the lack of progress would irritate him too much. Then, there could be another gas attack - or something worse.

Thankfully, I had smarter minds to guide me.

Clara forced information through my lens. Even without access to the greater net, she had put together a rough sketch of Chevalier's suit. Detailed circuits and components for how she would build it. Several configurations led to the same consensus - there was a main board or computerized component controlling most of the suit's capabilities.

I had just assumed cybernetics, like me. Synapses controlling the whole suit. The brief ramblings of the techie pointed to that not being functionally efficient or possible in the long term. Thus, a separate controller was present. Through her best judgements and hacking abilities, she determined it was likely hidden away under the armpit.

Right or left? It would have to be a guess. Fifty-fifty. She assumed the right side as it was further from his heart. I was inclined to agree. Roxy must have also received instructions from the techie, as she made the opening.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gun-arm chamber snapped shut. The super switched her left-handed hook into a grab, gripping and pulling Chevalier's right arm up. He struggled before giving her a punch with his free hand instead. V-Force burned, running red-hot agony from my metal fingertips all the way up into my brain.

I leaped forward as my left arm shot out a grapple past the pair. Before Chevalier could even turn his head to see what I was up to, I was there like a bullet. I punched out and set the Sanguine stake free. My body struck his, and I bounced away, my left arm re-fractured from the force of the grapple.

Sparks fizzled out of the wound in the knight's side. The pointed bullet had sunk almost entirely into his torso, clearly hitting something important. Roxy followed-up with a punch to his shoulder as she released him, sending him back several paces. The super clutched at her chest where he had struck her and coughed up more dust.

Chevalier wanted out. His anger and pride fought against the need for self-preservation. Against many heroes, he would be nigh invincible. He had probably spent most of the last five years making it so that he could walk over anyone with little effort. Now he faced a challenge. He was furious.

[Imagine if all five of us had arrived. We'd be walking you like a dog.]

The knight shook with rage. "Why do you persist? Out of all of us, why did it have to be you who lived?"

[I guess I'm just… built different.]

Before he could burst with a furious retort, Roxy darted at him again. We had both received new instructions into our heads. Rather than punch the knight, she grabbed hold of him, almost in a bear hug. Utilizing her momentum, she actually managed to twist and lift him into the air slightly.

With a roar, she spun and threw him. Not quite the usual distance, but it was right on target.

Totally unused to being manhandled like that, Chevalier floundered in the air briefly before colliding with the warehouse. The prefab walls put up zero resistance to the impact, and he cratered down out of sight. Into the loading mechanism and dozens of racks full of shells.

//Try loading shell ADPW-7

I did so. This wasn't even a name I had seen on the list viewed earlier. For good reason. Nothing appeared in my chamber.

Instead, something within the warehouse detonated, setting off a chain reaction of any shell that could be activated that way. A plume of flame and dark smoke rose up into the air as the ceiling of the building collapsed. Spent shells and steel balls bounced out of the collateral, pelting the surrounding area.

Roxy shuffled her way over to me. Up close, she looked even worse. Clothing matted with blood, some of it fresh. Soot and dust covered most of the rest of her. But on her exhausted and dirty face, her eyes bloomed like twin suns.

"This is a load of fucking balls, huh?" She grinned, despite it all.

[I hope meeting your family goes a little better than your meeting mine.]

"Eh." She shrugged and looked over at the warehouse, where the chain reaction was still ongoing. "Don't worry, babe. You'll kill it, I'm sure."

It's what I was made for, after all. The fizzing of spent Tazer and popping of High Explosive shots petered out, like a bag of popcorn nearing the end of kernels.

[I have something long in my pocket that I need help with.]

"Oh? Need me to slip it in for you?"

The warehouse shifted, the racking split, and large sections of concrete walls crumbled. A dark shape was silhouetted against the billowing smoke coming from the ruined building. Like some nightmarish creature, Chevalier stomped his way out of the wreckage and into the fading light of the day.

Even that calamity hadn't been enough to kill him. Expected, since most of my ammunition could barely scratch him when fired directly at him. Still, he hadn't come out of that unscathed.

The whole left side of his armor was now flecked in various shades of silver instead of being dark black. Several large plates had indentations. Flames once again licked at the back of his suit. The left arm I had previously injured now hung limp. Sparks crackled along his other arm, some of my spent ammunition having found their way in through his armpit electronics.

"To think… I could be bested by the likes of you…" He stomped his way up to us before stopping.

[Now who is the persistent one?]

Chevalier chuckled, although there was a lack of energy to it. "Ignorance is bliss, brother. I know the cost of failure. What the Government will do if I can't kill you."

That's where he was wrong, because I did know. Even as he raised his arm, hand going toward his slack wrist, I understood what he was about to do.

The World Government wouldn't allow him to live. There were too many ties to them. If there was any chance of him being captured, then… he needed to die. Whether that was a self-destruct, calling in a bomb to his position, or anything else - I didn't want to find out.

This kill was mine. For what he did to me in the past. For what he is doing to me now. So that he can't meddle in my future.

My arm snapped up, and power whipped through my system quicker than it ever had.

Reflex. Overcharge. Every mote of power I could draw up in every V-Force drive in my body. A little self-immolation never hurt me. In that split second, I took aim and fired with everything I had.

The Mega-Stake was nearly six inches long. An inch thick. Denser than any other ammunition I had fired through my arm. Rather than slow my attack, these points seemed to act as a force multiplier.

With a crack, it struck Chevalier. The sharpened tip pierced through the wrist of his arm reaching across his chest. His hand stuck to his plating from the force. The stake continued through into his torso, pinning his arm in place there.

The knight was shocked. Neither of his arms was responsive now. Glancing at them, he looked back up as Roxy and I approached.

He tried to backtrack and escape. Blood ran across dark metal. The wasteland was far too large for him to run away. After several steps back, his footing wavered as the ground beneath him shifted.

Chevalier tripped and fell back, landing awkwardly in the small crater forming around his heavy suit.

"Told you that you didn't fill the basement of your old house properly," Roxy said.

I stood at the edge of the pit, my flickering shadow washing over my brother as the flames rose in the background.

[House? You mean kill room.]

The knight squirmed as he tried to back away and get up on his feet. Unsuccessful. I hopped down into the hole and walked over him.

"Lecture me then, brother," he growled. "Go on and tell me that-"

My boot came down as I stomped on his helmet.

"The League won't be able to get any answers from-"

I stomped down again, this time with a little V-Force.

"What… are you…"

This time, more power. He didn't respond, except for some pained grunts. Again, and again, I stomped on his helmet with increasing amounts of energy. The visor cracked. Dust billowed away from his body with every strike. Eventually, I ran out of anger and energy. Lightheaded, I stepped away from him.

The helmet was now misshapen. Unfit for purpose. Blood and gore seeped from every edge, painting the dry pit in dark crimson. My lungs ran ragged, re-breather rattling as I calmed myself.

Until the only noise was the crackling of burning wood, and the occasional pop of an errant shell going off.

I looked up at Roxy, who was standing at the edge with her arms crossed.

[You were right. Care to fill this in for me?]

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