A flash of perception slowed the world down, drove Seth’s arms up to shield his head. To counter an oncoming punch from Ohm, but that was only enough to prevent a straight up knock out. Just as quickly as it came, he was thrown out of his slow down, arms buckled and footing kicked out from under him. Sent rolling away, sand grinding its way in, balance barely righting as those feet slide to a stop. All to only immediately force that block up again.
Kabar had come rocketing forward after lassoing around Ohm’s waist and getting carried closer by his attack, pulling him back in the process while transferring momentum into a flying kick. Sandy soles crinkled against guarding arms and Seth was recoiled back again. Except now he had his feet dug into that same heavy sand, enough to repulse that kick and send Kabar sprawling backward instead. Finally earning a second of breathing space, he had a chance to see just what was coming for him.
As the lineup collapsed, everyone jostled for position, spreading out to get clear angles of attack. Razor was slowest on the uptick, confidence getting the better of him.
“This is going to be too easy.”
Only to have that confidence be rebuked as Kaz turned about, meeting razor knife with sword.
“I am your opponent!”
Razor grimaced, but relented.
“Eh fuck it, fair is fair.”
So Seth was faced with 'only' ten other opponents.
Ohmega and Kabar were getting back up, but the main issue was Cleo rushing in closer. He couldn’t let her tie him down from range, he had to go on the offensive. He set his feet and bound forward, slipping past a freshly materialized strap Cleo thought he would be too distracted to dodge. She wasn’t expecting a head on attack either, emphasis on head on. Seth bull charged his head into Cleo’s bare gut sending her back into Jacob and David who had bunched up behind her.
Only slightly dizzy from the impact, Seth pulled in both arms as Alex and Marco flanked him now. Alex bringing in a hastily mimicked air fist while Marco brought his the genuine one. They launched them in near perfect unison, at the empty space Seth left. He had quickly stepped back, still guarding against what was about to hit. Because apparently when two air fists meet each other they also explode, the air pressure rebounding as a shockwave. All three were blown off their feet, the wind force ignoring most of Seth's defense and blasting him onto his back hard. A hand scraped out and pushed him back upright, but he was still stumbling and feeling the dizz now. At least he had distance though.
He could see Maya compressing a sandstone fist and charging past her prone ‘allies’ while Zeleny was… flying over her! She quickly surprised and grabbed Maya by the uncoated hand. Looping up and bringing her up to speed, a flying catapult. Seth wasn’t the only one studying the fight earlier but the issue right now was he couldn’t reorient himself in time, or at all really. Wait, he couldn’t move his left leg. He saw Cleo, beaming a sadistic smile from the ground behind everyone, a hand extended and a strap coiled around his leg. He was stuck.
No choice but the risky one, he pulled back his right leg and arm, feigned a futile hard left block as Zeleny released Maya with an underhand swing. Seth closed his eyes in feigned preparation, but focused his power as safely as he could into his right arm. He’d have to eat the tax for it later, but right now it was necessary. As Maya came in with a hardened fist Seth blasted out of the feint, counterweighting his left arm back as his right came barreling in to meet the sandstone fist. A thick explosion of dust and sandy rocks, and Maya was sent spiraling past him off her own destabilized momentum.
There was no time to pull the probably toughened leather strap wrapped around his leg, so Seth dragged his extended right back out through the dust cloud ahead of him, trying to clear his line of sight. Only for a lynx paw to come flying out of the cloud, smacking him across the face. Tabby had swung her now big snowshoe-like paw and was continuing along with her momentum with a flying roundhouse kick. The summary double batting turned that dizziness into full on daze, meaning there was no resistance left as the other two massive paws slammed into his chest. The force enough to dislodge him from the strap, and send him flying back further.
His back hit sand with a softer crunch, and he could still scrape himself back under control. The persisting dust cloud gave him a moment to shake off the daze and stand up, but not long enough to react. A rush of water splashed the cloud apart, and quickly froze as it drenched his legs. David and Jacob were working together, and Seth was stuck in place again. Before he could pull his arms up, a shoot of sand came in from his right and swallowed his arm, Maya wasn’t out just yet. A strap pulled his left back as Cleo rounded the settling cloud. And then the real rush came barreling into view.
Everyone running at him, pushing and shoving. Alex was hung off Zeleny.
“HE’S MINE!!”
Kabar was whipping back Marco and David as he rushed forward.
“NO HE’S MINE!!!”
Tabby was hanging off Jacob trying to swing him out of the way.
“MINE!!!”
“MINE!!”
“MIINNE!!!”
But Seth could only watch as Ohmega flashed ahead of them all, a full punch sparking with electricity, reeled in.
“Mine!”
Fist compacted gut as undo force echoed across the arena. Ice, sand, and leather were unable to hold him down as he rocketed into the sand stone wall at his back. Soft stone shattered and crumbled in another bass kick, Seth rebounding off and fell to the sand. Rubble coming down on him, a hard sandstone beat added to this fall. Cracking over his hand, knocked his it low and darkened this world in more ways than one. He was pinned down and the fight seemed ended once and for all.
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The dust settled as everyone stopped their bickering and waited for the call. Para, having moved with the fight, observed the scene with earned arrogance. He was about to speak up as Ohmega struck an even more arrogant pose.
“Ha, I got him, so who do I get to train un-OMFH!!”
Maya body slammed straight into him as Para smirked audibly.
“The school of hard knocks if you think this fights over after one opponent!”
Leaving the rest to determine a real winner amongst themselves, Para broke off toward the pile of rubble that was now Seth, stopping short and squatting closer.
“You see kid, I said this place wasn’t for you. You weren’t ready, more than likely you’ll never be ready. You're weak, you'll always be. So just give up and go home, it'll hurt less.”
“You never deserved to be a hero anyway.”
The darkness surrounding Seth echoed those words over and over, burning them in with undo cause. Under that rubble he could hear everything.
“He’s all your Medi!”
Mediknight, still standing unperturbed on the sidelines, finally clanged in slowly. Disappointment laden in his step, he'd had to clean up Para’s messes before.
Under the rubble Seth could feel everything. The rumble of more heavy hits, the heat of stymied attacks, the clang of metal, but… for some reason he couldn’t feel anything of himself anymore. His bones were splinters stabbing at him from all angles, his muscles emptied of energy just to keep up with the bruising, his head was swimming around and around without a course. The pain was drowning everything else away… and constantly echoing those damn words!
An unmetered pull textured the darkness, drawing him deeper, toward something powerful. His bones healed, his head righted, the bruises ceased. But the pain stayed, blotted out everything. Like there was nothing there in the first place… nothing… nothing but-
‘Who the FUCK do you think you are?!! You can’t even IMAGINE what I’ve had to go through, what I’ve had to suffer through just to get HERE!!! What I’ve had to FUCKING LIVE WITH!!! What I've had to GIVE UP!!! What I've LOST!!! ALL BECAUSE OF…!!!’
Seth stopped himself. The edge of an abyss loomed across his psyche, eating away at it, feeding off of it. He could feel the rage and resentment that nearly consumed him seethe out from it as he pulled away from it, before it could pull him in. The Garkah had warned him about this, of the power they had to lock away. A holdover from when he lost control… from when Threat lost control...
Seth stared into it, scrutinizing it. He could hear something, like a low hiss, a whisper. It was seeping out at the edges of the container it had been shoved into. Amounts too insignificant to keep back wisped off like steam. It was indecipherable, but he could feel it. And he knew just what it really was. He planted his feet figuratively and focused on it. A focus that not only extended, but pulled. Dragged this abyss up, closer than it wanted, pulling that whisper for what it really was. Power.
‘You fucking think im weak?! I’ll show you what real fucking power is whether you like it or NOT!!!’
The rubble shook and Mediknight stopped in his tracks, a tension in his sudden deceleration. He’d dealt with enough supers to know when someone just pushed their limits, the healing field around him rippling in response. The rubble lifted and fell away with meaty thunks, alerting Para to what Mediknight already knew. In front him, Seth’s suit, still standing in statuesque attention, stirred. The eyes lit up with a blue glow of internal power, signaling something expected was occuring. But before he could fully turn back to see the true cause, he was buffeted by kicked up dust, his turn stopped to shield his eyes. So he could fully spin back toward the fight, yet only watch as Seth tore across the sand. A fist raised with all the vengeance it felt like taking hold of.
Still wrestling with Maya on the ground, barely able to force her away with a double kick at the last minute, Ohm was ready to break free from the sand she wrapped around him. But he was summarily slammed down upon, sand and lung aerosolizing and rippling with all the power Seth took to beat into him. Using the momentum, he pole-vaulted off Ohm’s unconscious and narrowly caved in chest.
Landing and spring loading his feet, he rocketed off, parting the dust cloud he created and finding his next victim. A stunned David close by trying to sneak attack Ohm and Maya. Seth pivoted and slid, using his trailing leg to break and transferred his inertia into a kick with the other leg. He slammed it into David’s back, flinging him into the cloud, straight into Maya on the other side, still recoiling from Ohm’s dislodging.
Following through with his inertia, Seth scanned the battlefield as his perception found its hold out of sheer overdrive. Jacob and Kabar were duking it out, though Jacob seemed like it wasn’t mutually wanted. Zeleny and Alex were flying and jousting, Alex color shifted to red for everybody’s sake. Marco and Tabby were trading blows, Tabby still in lynx form. Razor and Kaz were meeting blades in the center of all this, undisturbed by the rest of the fighters.
Seth locked on to Marco and Tabby, planted his foot hard, and launched forward, pulling both fists in crosswise. Razor and Kaz watched as he burst between the fighters out of nowhere and backhand punched them away from each other. Razor trying desperately to look like he never even thought about attacking him, slowly swinging back and forth against Kaz’s sword while looking for a reaction from Seth.
“Eyes on your opponent!”
Kaz for his part played along, observing the fight more stealthily. Razor snapped back to Kaz, now taking their fight more seriously, mouthing “Thank you” as he rounded them.
Seth bull rushed into Kabar from behind. Going low, and scooped his legs up and menacingly pulled him up like a human club, bringing him down on Jacob, and smacking their heads together, leaving them in a heap. Letting go and kicking off to the side just as a new round of straps attempted to grab him. He swiveled and scanned around, catching Cleo back over by Para, just as Zeleny and Alex came crashing down in a ball between them.
His foot set again and shot toward them, barely allowing Cleo to react. As he approached, Alex tried to lift herself off the ground. He lunged forward alongside, spiraling around and grabbing her by the throat, turning over to dodge a strap field Cleo materialized beneath them. Seth completed the spin and choke slammed Alex down into the straps, using the inertia to dodge to the side. Zeleny attempted to fly back and escape the encroaching strap field. She only made it a few feet away before he was slotting in ahead of her, feet first. He used her as a backstop and kicked her back into the field, launching himself closer to Cleo. She recoiled in surprise, desperately spreading out another field of grabbing straps through the entire ground between them.
Seth landed running, charging straight into the field, no more fear of getting tied down left. Because it couldn't. He charged through, snapping any that were able to grab him like they weren’t even there. The left arm locked hard and slammed her gut, flinging her out of the way, but he still didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. There was only one way this could end, only one place this power he took allowed him to see.
Seth loaded up momentum one last time, right at Para’s side. Sand kicked away as he launched himself toward his face, a massive right hook charged and unwilling to hold back. The fist slammed Para across his still stunned face, harder than Seth hit the other trainees, harder than he’s ever hit anything. The shockwave alone shook the arena and kicked up a final blast of sand to buffet his defeated opponents. Para was sent flying, spiraling through the air and crashing into the wall of the arena, smashing through it into one of the ancillary storage rooms. This free for all was over, but the war was just declared.