Consul was wreathed in flames. A dozen different lasers focused on him, but at this point the point-defense ones fast enough to track his small form and erratic movements had descended to the level of a mild inconvenience, almost a tan.

Guided by his preternatural senses, he had begun maneuvering to the other side of Mars. The majority of the zombie vessels had ceased to fire on him, but the odd handful did, the compromised sensors unable to stand down. One such craft lumbered into his view, and his madness compelled him to kill it.

He dove like a hawk, they'd drifted so close to Mars that the anemic resistance of the atmosphere made him blaze yet again. Unfortunately, he wasn't immune to sudden input of momentum, so for a moment he struggled to make headway against a hail of lead as an operational CWIS pelted him, but the vessel had developed an uncontrollable spin around the long axis, and it drifted out of sight.

He slammed into the vessel and tore the plates apart, feeling them turn from harder than steel to soft and almost jelly-like as the pressure of his fingers activated bizarre metamaterial properties. Another instant, and he was in, rampaging inside, using hallways to build up speed before simply rupturing through the bulwark. He tore a path out again, then grabbed the compliant ship and pushed, sending it into a decaying orbit that would crash down near the equator.

He didn't want to waste time, but even as he felt a burning need to kill the man who had hurt him, was hurting him, the presence of enemies made him compelled to fight.

More static in his head, the woman's voice had suppressed it momentarily, now he was back to venting his desire to kill and maim.

Sick of looping around the enormous ball of rust, he accelerated for the atmosphere, shunting it aside, a crimson comet leaving lighting in his wake as he skimmed over the surface.

He was struck by how utterly baked the world was. It hadn't been a looker from the start, posters of untouched Martian vistas had become unfashionable quite quickly after the first colonies. Red, brown, look, a little patch of ochre. Maybe white if you visit the poles, not that they existed anymore.

He slowed down, hovering over the remains of a city. This close to the equator, a long linear trail of debris from the collapsing space elevator had cut through the settlement. Skyscrapers, entirely an affectation on Mars where there was no absence of room to sprawl, had melted down into amorphous piles of rubble.

Self-driving cars lay molten and slagged, apparently their last programmed destination had been straight to hell and not quite back. There were a few corpses, ethnicity reduced to skeleton. Those who hadn't quite heeded the evacuation warnings in time, or had ventured out prematurely. His passage, just barely above supersonic, scattered them to the winds. And what winds they were, the strongest the planet had seen in a while, the planet's thin veil of modesty rearranging itself to cover the gaping wounds and thermal burns. Almost a stiff breeze by terrestrial standards!

There was still movement. Some robots had been over-engineered, still clinging to mechanical life when biological had failed. He felt a mild pang of desire to finish them off, but he still felt an overwhelming urge to slay one particular target, now achingly close over the horizon.

"Consul!"

An augmented voice, no normal one could reach him.

He stopped, face largely impassive. Only the twitching of his eyelids and the rictus grin stamped onto his face betrayed the cacophony in his head.

A woman stood there, a mile away. A closer look would show she was floating, hovering.

For a moment, his urge to find one particular man was dampened. He recognized her, he'd left her losing her tears in hurricane winds on Jupiter a decade back.

Nice tits.

She wasn't crying now, her fury was white hot instead.

"Consul. What the fuck are you doing?" Her voice boomed, sending sand flying even when both the wind and he had stilled.

He twitched, jaws clenched yet the muscles working to bite against his swollen tongue.

"Answer me, you cunt. I always knew you were an asshole, but this?" She gestured at the devastation around them.

A shard of his mind felt affronted. Bitch thought he was responsible for this shit? Hardly, he hadn't even been in the planetary neighborhood. But far above the ship he'd kicked out of orbit sailed a crescent streak against a maroon sky. That counted.

He drooled saliva that fizzled and popped.

"I don't understand.. They told me you had gone crazy, and I didn't believe them. To think you're here now, you coward, trashing my home."

She blinked back tears for real this time. Whatever her powerset was, things leaving her body didn't fade to environmental conditions as quickly as his did.

He kept on staring at her tits.

I swear I couldn't see them from this far away before.

But he was more envious of her ability to project her voice effortlessly from miles away. Would be handy to have. Maybe stealing it might work if he tore out her throat?

He was naked as the day he was born, and she grimaced in disgust at his boner.

"Hey. Fuckhead. Can you talk?" She flew closer, wary.

He kept on staring, pupils dilated. A fresh trickle of blood dripped from his nose, he lapped at it absentmindedly.

"So did someone finally mind control you? Tell you what a prick you are?"

He only looked confused.

"Fucking say something!" Her scream made him wince from the ache in his ears. Half the reason he'd left Jupiter post-haste was how noisy she could be over a mere breakup.

A drone cracked the sky, decelerating to come to a hover next to them.

"Madame Magnifique, I strongly advise you evacuate and head for orbit or shelter. If necessary, I will stall him so you can do so."

She looked at it haughtily. "I'm not going anywhere. Don't tell me I don't have a shot at ending this asshole, it's been a long time coming."

"I understand your desire to engage him in combat, and even consider it laudable. However, it's best you reconvene with additional support, or use the aid of the firepower from the fleet." It sounded contrite.

"Look pal, I can take him. I've run the numbers. I just never had an excuse." She stared back harder than he was, shocking him out of his reverie for a moment. Her eyes had turned pure white, so bright it ought to have left shadows, but simultaneously casting no real illumination. Pale fire coruscated around her clenched fist, coalescing into a sword of light that sang in the wind. She snapped the fingers on her other, and she was coated in a crystalline layer of armor. A crown that simultaneously managed to be so jagged it hurt the eye while remaining elegant dug into her brow, so tight a few trickles of blood threatened to escape.

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He licked his lips, still unmoving. He was more disappointed by the loss of some of her curves.

"Even granting your claim that you can handle him, Madame, he's not-" The drone tried to move as hard as its suped up agrav allowed it to. That meant Consul only managed a glancing blow. It wasn't just any ordinary drone, because it did survive the hit. But while it unleashed its weaponry into him, it didn't survive the next.

It detonated, but what's one more bomb on Mars?

He was back to staring at her, like a drowning man at a lifeboat. Maybe the two she had were sufficiently buoyant.

She cried out in disgust. "I won't be quick, unlike you, cocksucker."

She left an afterimage, then a plume of shattered obsidian as she crossed the half kilometer to him in an instant.

Unlike all the blows he'd taken on the chin so far, instinct made Consul duck, and whatever power had been helping him so far, it certainly made him barely fast enough to manage it. Her blade cut his earlobe off, the tissue, once separated, outright disintegrating from the force.

He didn't immediately move to hit her, only swaying in place, a hand to the mutilated organ.

"I had an Apotheosis event, think there's such a big gap between us now?" She twirled the blade, too bright to look at. Well, he'd seen brighter.

"Don't think this is about Jupiter. It was a PR stunt. But you just killed my nephew, my niece, and my sister. That makes it personal."

This time she flew straight at him, and this time he fought back. The arc blade was aimed at his hairless oozing chest, but was blocked by his raised hand, cutting into the space between the middle and ring finger till it caught on bone below.

He punched at her, almost casually, her neck cracked like a whip as she dodged it, kicking him so hard in the nuts it knocked him upwards at several hundred kilometers an hour.

Gratifyingly, that didn't hurt at all, he wanted to tell her that she was better off with the sword.

"Consul! Don't even think about running from me!" She flew up at him, threatening to pierce the sky.

He looked down, not thinking of much at all. At the last minute, he stomped down, feeling his forcefield ripple and tear as the blade ran up his spine, snagging on vertebra.

Her blows came fast and furious, each one cutting into his invincible flesh. His ripostes were clumsy, whatever fistfighting skills he'd picked up on the streets had become rusty when simply punching things had long sufficed.

While she couldn't cut through the bone, joints were fair game. A severed digit spiralled through the air, then a chunk of his cheek.

She kept it up, even when he stopped responding, just taking the blows without heed. Yes, that woman in his head couldn't be all that bad, could she? Consul exulted in the freedom from pain, he'd never realized how badly he'd been held back by it before.

He gurgled happily like a babe when she slit his throat, the tiny hyoid bone next to his Adam's apple catching it before it went much deeper. Frustrated, she screamed again, and smashed him into the ground, knocking him through a miraculously standing building or two and bringing them down with him.

The rubble heaved, shedding debris as he broke through and stood there, eyeing her with unchecked lust.

"I can't believe it. Is this a joke to you?" The blade grew sharper, longer. Mere contact with the edge left the inert atmosphere ionized and crackling with static.

More slings and arrows of misfortune flew above them, deities exchanging fire with their reanimated kin. A portion of the UN fleet had decided to move in overhead, both engaging the tide of zombie ships, and perhaps to provide fire support.

She wept fitfully, her tears soaking cracked tarmac.

"Just die already!" He reflexively moved to cover his throat again, only to find she'd gone for an entirely different kind of head.

Oh no you didn't.

Consul looked at the twitching member falling beneath, vanishing beneath the sand. Whatever combination of cupidity and maladaptive daydreaming had been slowing him down vanished. When he moved, and she retreated in alarm, taken aback by his speed, the rest of the city collapsed around them. She cut a bridge in half, he barged through. A ravine was extended another mile as he careened off the side, wordless screaming as he grabbed at her throat.

She really was fast. And more importantly, durable with that armor of hers. He managed to land a few good hits, sending her ricocheting off rock that came out the worse for wear. An attempted grab at the circlet had cut his radial artery, he made no effort to staunch the jetting bleed, exsanguination had never been a threat to him.

A lance of energy found him, turning the ravine into a crater. He lay there at the bottom, cackling and sobbing, trying to fondle his missing manhood. She was charred by the blast, but a dismissal and resummoning of her suit repaired it instantly.

She was listening to someone, her head cocked to the side, speaking out loud.

"And that'll let me put him down for good? Fucking do it then!"

A flash of light punctuated her sentence for her, somewhere far above, psychics and support metahumans were channeling power into her, in much the same manner as Lumen was boosting him. At least they didn't have to worry about her powers resisting them at every turn.

She screamed, fractal crystals sharper than obsidian erupting from her flesh, horns of diamond emerging from her skull. He rolled about in mirth, kicking up packed dirt. Nothing made sense. He'd tried crying, and screaming. Maybe laughter would do the trick?

She jumped down, bouncing in the low gravity. He didn't resist as she picked him up by the nape, and then punched him in the gut, her blade disposed of for a gauntlet of energy. The impact folded him like origami, he vomited blood and swallowed metal, but kept laughing all the same. She hit him again, and again, feeling the crack of ribcages, before slamming him down on her knee. Her armor cracked, splinters whizzing off, but he spasmed, his lower half paralyzed, but the upper reaching out to caress her face.

She threw him, sending him bouncing half a dozen times and then coming to a stop at the bottom of a cliffside. She brought back the blade, and began cutting into his chest, trying to impale his heart.

Unluckily for her, Lady Purple decided that total analgesia was having an undesired effect, and toned it down, interrupting Consul's unadulterated appreciation of the Great Cosmic Joke with mindshattering pain. Good thing his mind was already shattered, eh?

His presence of mind momentarily restored, he flew off the ground, legs dangling uselessly below him, but it's not like they were what kept him aloft. She dug her nails of ruby into his eyes, gouging one out, before he bit down on her hand, cracking his teeth and biting clean through.

Now it was her turn to scream, kneeing him in the groin, this time to more effect. He still hung on like a rabid dog, simply shearing off more crystal as he lost his grip.

They went at it in earnest, almost a reprise of their tryst on a different, alien world. They'd left a mark in the course of the very hurricane they were in, after all.

Consul grappled her, locking her joints, and dragged her into the ground, his telekinetic flight overpowering hers. She bit back, black teeth of onyx taking his nose, before he returned the favor with a love bite that left her lipless. Armor flowed away from the rest of her to help cover her face, and he lapped at the flowing visor like a deer at a saltlick.

Did she think he needed his heart? Hardly, the fact she had skewered it only made it harder to disentangle them. He couldn't release his hold on her without giving her a chance to fly away, so he settled for a headbutt that made the world quake, glazing her visor. Another, it shattered.

He swallowed her broken teeth, crunching them with his own, uncaring when both broke.

He grabbed her silken hair, and tugged, tearing it out at the root, the tissue being so strong it took a plate of bone and adherent brain and meninges beneath, his fingers trying to dig in further, only to be impaled on the crown.

She didn't regenerate, not like he did. More of the crystal replaced her flesh, till she had a crystal skull that left her almost as fuck-ugly as he was. A twist of the blade, and she cut his spinal cord somewhere near the cervical level, paralyzing him. She struggled to pry his death grip off her, managing to free one leg, which she used to kick him away a dozen miles.

Her previous confidence was as shattered as she was. He could hear her begging for a teleport, but the skies were now raining fresh hellfire, hundreds of ships resuming battle from the grave.

"Consul.." He was all business and no more pleasure, slamming into her and not stopping, bringing them out of the atmosphere in a few beats of his mangled heart.

He directed her at an undead ship, bringing both of them into the exhaust plume from its half-functioning engines. He cackled and crackled, feeling her melt and turn to glass.

The UN ships held their fire. The zombies weren't so discerning. They were both bathed in radiation, he was boiling, then melting, then vaporizing. Her armor spread itself thin to cover what it could, but it wasn't enough.

The sheer pressure of the light sent them back towards the ground, a hundred focused beams of coherent radiation just about sufficient for the task when aided by the blasts of yet more warheads. By the time of impact, they were melting into each other, his regrowing flesh morphing around her exoskeleton.

She had barely any meat left, but for where his hands had been locked around her throat. He tore off her limbs, hurling them into space, before biting into her jugular. He drank the blood, then began chewing, content in having saved flesh for his feast. It was a shame, for much the reason low cabin pressure ruins Adat's and your enjoyment of in-flight meals, the near vacuum of Mars made it a tasteless affair. She was dead well before he was done, otherwise he'd be left chewing glass.

His belly hurt, but so did everything else. Carbonized skin fell of him in chunks as he rocketed back into the sky.