The Hill was in an atmosphere of pure animosity. Stern looks of refuted justice and humiliated duty cross through air soaked deep in nitroglycerin. The normal buzz and bustle of the dispatch room was replaced by desperately careful conveyance. No one wanted to spark the fury that permeated everything, even if the images they were seeing did everything they could to light it all up. The fighting half of the Elite were stood over the central war board, few portions of the city below them still blackened by the repeated EMP attacks. Small emergencies flashing and dimming as they were reported and contained. Smaller marks, denoting minor heroes, scattering throughout to the equally scattered and constant crop ups. Most usually turned out to be little more than complaints, but Aegis couldn’t bring herself to feel annoyed. Shame caked everything, even as the main screen drew back her ire.
Long range camera footage, drones, surviving spy cams left in Eagleville to watch for Seth’s movements. All of it had showed the riots that had resulted from their incursion, added an already drenched atmosphere more humidity. But right now it showed nothing but boiling ionized air, played back the arrival of a new sun in the middle of main, and showed Seth, suit and all, sat in its burned out center. Hollowed out, unmoving, vulnerable. But the tension denied any action. He’d thrown this city into blackout twice over, escaped their dragnets twice as well, showed off more alarming power than had been previously observed, and was now losing control of it all.
His paradox was maddening. He wanted to be a hero, but hid his power. He lost his family in the crisis but modeled his suit after their killers. He killed three heroes like they were nothing but insects to him, but showed crushing regret for it. Rescued an entire warehouse of people without killing a soul, and saved them twice over from what could only be said to be his own outburst. And then went on to spare four more heroes who sought their own revenge. And now he was struggling to control his own powers despite the suit meant to contain them. Aegis could barely wrap her head around all this, and could feel the glares from the rest of the Elite who couldn’t even begin to understand. Let alone care. All they saw was an enemy they couldn’t reconcile with, one struggling against himself just as much as they were. And it pissed them off. And something had to give at some point.
“Officer Burgess!”
A stoic demand from Erdwut at last tore down the tension like it was just a curtain pull, and nearly wheeled Comms Officer Burgess out of his chair.
“S-Sir!!”
The officer was still drowning in every bit of that humid air.
“I want every team, B and above, converging on this position within the hour!”
His wide eyed expression belied none of the gravity of that demand.
“S-sir… a-all of them?”
But Erdwut’s glare may as well have been the mouth of an active volcano stared straight at the unfortunate man.
“All of them!!”
The tension finally released en masse, the room turning to a roil of procedure. Every dispatcher, tied to the entire tri-state area, switched from quiet standard management to immediate link in the chain of command. No order needed to be given, all were rallying every team on their rolls and directing them to Eagleville. Directing them to Seth.
The flurry was disregarded as Erd turned around and stormed out of the room, the rest of the Elite in toe. They’d been ready for this fight for too long already. Except Hothead, who broke off quickly to his room, he just couldn’t be bothered to wear his suit until it was absolutely necessary. Even if he was always on call. By contrast Maglev, Makani Samurai, and Aegis had never gotten a chance to rest. Maglev had held the fort here while Aegis and Erdwut were chasing Seth before. Samurai was finally done feeling sadness for the first time in years, so he’d been out of action these past few days. Mediknight and Techno had to stay on station, Medi still had too many people left to heal and Techno too much data to sift through. But Aegis was sure he was going to be watching this closely.
The call had barely been made but already the periphery was flooding. Heroes were getting their rallies to action and funneling toward preassigned docks. Every shape and shade, those who knew full well what they were headed towards and those that could barely comprehend. But Erd was unmoved. He continued to storm counter to their flow, stoic glare clearing a path all on its own. He and the Elite had more pressing concerns. Hothead skidded into formation alongside Maglev, gloves hanging between his teeth and a boot hastily being clamped in place. Just in time for them to round the corner of the foyer, melted and shattered tiles still marking Seth’s steps… And his desecration of their home. Caution tape warded the destroyed façade, but a crowd was gathered regardless, waiting for just this moment to occur. The flash and chatter of cameras, and the coordinated assemblage around an in-focus area. The media was gathered wanting answers for what was going on, what would be done, what would it all mean. And they were not going to relent in their pursuit.
The Elite were surrounded the second they left the empty double door, barraged by flashes and questions too fast to answer. Already soured dispositions turned caustic as the assault weathered down their guard unlike even the worst attacks they’ve faced before. Questions of their competency, of the city’s safety, of their disregard, of what will happen to Para, to Aegis, of why this even got this far in the first place, of why nothing is being don- *STOMP*
The storm was silenced as that stoic volcano stepped into place and broke its wave. Like every time before. Eschenwald sitting unlit on his belt, yet the air coming off still heated to a broil. But… Erdwut’s voice retained none of that suppressed boil. Like that volcano had gone extinct and remained sat watching down over the life that had spread out in its shadow.
“Everything is going to be fine. We’re on our way to stop things from getting worse. Get back to your homes and get back to your lives. We are going to finish this…”
His hand pulled the dormant blade free as the inquisitive swarm pulled back almost out of instinct. Like that calmed volcano was coming back to life.
“Once… and for all!” *FWWWOOOERRRRGRG*
The first eruption in ages tore that placid mountain to cinders. That molten sword bursting out in full flare as the landing docks to either side of the foyer thundered to life. VTOLs ignited their engines and started their drones for all to know that their heroes were going to war. And the stoic volcano that was Erdwut was making his march yet again. The part in the crowded reporters pulled wider as he made his way, fire and ingrained respect keeping them back as the rest of the Elite followed behind. As the full brunt of the League force in Kadia descended from their despoiled home.
Whether to further retrace Seth’s steps or to make sure the whole city knew what was happening, the Elite stepped down from their Hill and marched their warpath. The VTOL fleet slowing their drone above, engines only tilted enough to hover slowly in formation behind. UTAHs rumbled out from the lower docks and rounded the access road that surrounded the hill, forming up alongside as Erd stayed his course.
The twice destroyed plaza path before the Hill clinked under their boots. The ruined monument still standing in the way, yet easily circumvented. The still shaken Buster sat against it even easier. Her blade was freed, but she still sat with it propped up beside her, hand wrapped around and head pressed tight to it. Like she’d lost something dear to her and only just got it back. Aegis only afforded her a pitying glance, but little else. She’d chosen to undertake this on her own and had to deal with the consequences on her own. But it would still have been nice to have another blade added to the fight.
The clinks turned to rumble as the UTAHs formed up off their side streets. The city was still in disruption, normal life brought to a halt twice over and their heroes defeated twice over. The people needed to see that their defenders weren’t letting this stand, weren’t letting evil win, weren’t going to let history repeat in some different form. People gathered to watch them, to cheer them on, to see for their own eyes that their lives weren’t going to be left in chaos. Still more simply watched to confirm that they were heard just as much as anyone else was. If not a bit more so. For as much as this city loved its heroes, Aegis knew they felt entitled to them. Felt entitled to the peace and security that they provided. Their ire couldn’t be ignored among the cheering throngs. Sometimes she regretted ever being a hero, but now wasn’t the time for doubts. There was too long a march to spend second guessing.
The forested hills passed solemnly, the neighborhood beyond still smoking from its burned out wrath. The people below could only see this one way, heroes enforcing their will over the already downtrodden. But no one cared anymore for what was thought of them. All this advance saw was the cratered street ahead, the boiled over air that still steamed the last of its heat away, and the shine of armored terror that needed to be put down.
The drone overhead increased, more VTOLs crowded the sky from the east and north. Outposts that were spread out providing their forces to the fight. Flyers detached and escorted their laden motherships, streaks of contrails and energy in their wakes. The road rumbled from the east, the intersection ahead filled with more UTAHs from those other bases. Standing atop one, surrounded by roiling air set to burst apart, and-
“I’M BACK YOU UNGRATEFUL FUCKS!!!”
And glaring like a madman at the dystopia that spread out before him, was the one who bore the blame for this neighborhood's state in its people’s eyes. Kineticlysm. The unofficial tenth member of the Elite in exile, too strong for his own good and too brash for anyone else’s. But despite his hate of this place for ruining his career, he wasn’t about to ignore a call to arms… or another chance to prove his worth as a hero again. He turned back to meet his advancing and far less enthusiastic compatriots.
“Hey guys!! It’s been way too… long…”
But Erd refused to stop and greet his former comrade as he stepped off the roof as the mechanized team passed him by. The road nearly turned to dust beneath his steel boot, the built up power in him shaking the air and ground like it was being held hostage. His suit had seen better days as Aegis greeted him with a halfhearted shrug. He wore the bottoms from a surplus suit colored a sandy tan but accented with steel borders, and a torn up black tank top that matched his boots. The big thing was the container cuffs and collar he had. His power stored up potential energy every time he moved, and too much of it could be overtly destructive when he turned it kinetic. So he wore, was mandated to wear, special equipment to release that energy when it wasn’t needed. The aesthetic scarily suited him. Messy brown hair and bloodshot grey eyes just added to the mad smile he gleamed. He hadn’t gotten to fight much since his departure. But, despite his reception, was far too ready now.
The UTAHs rumbled the smoky neighborhood and blocked off streets in every direction. Storm doors burst open and spilled out heroes narrowly beyond count. Suits colored every shade under and over the rainbow, powers and weapons of every conceivable and inconceivable type, an army to stand against undo terror. Flyers and VTOLs circled the sky, powered and armed, creating a perimeter too deep to avoid. More doors slammed open and rappelling ropes spooled down to adjacent rooftops, ranged supers dropping down to firing positions. Bows and guns, unnatural accuracy and powered arms, even a tank of a man wielding a minigun torn straight from a CWIS mount. Swords, spears and powered hands filled the street below. Manipulators and breakers, martial artists and elementalists, wielders of artifacts and holders of power. The League descended upon its foe with all the force it could muster.
Teams spread out as they neared the dust filled crater, a line three deep rounding the edge. Weapons pulled ahead while ranged stayed their distance. The VTOLs departed and left the sky to the dome of flyers in en masse overwatch. The Elite held their line a breast facing down their gleaming yet bowed target. Erdwut held the center with Aegis at his right. Hothead and Maglev held the left while Samurai pulled in next to Aegis. Kineticlysm squeezed in next to him, a softened yet still overly excited smile meeting Samurai’s fairly worried one.
“So what’s this guy like huh? You gotta tell me!”
Samurai disregarded his overenthused tone and whispered him a brief, as Aegis scanned down the encircling formation. A few of the trainers from her course were in line. Blade Tone, Phoenix Tech, Breakerbox, and… Para?! Out of the corner of her eye she saw him grapple his way out of one of the UTAHs. Suit barely managed on, bandages still marking his face, and his limp hand and foot still drawing him down. But the determined look in his eye said enough about what he was here for. Another observer to add to the list.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
But in the end none who were here mattered, only what they were here for. Her gaze fell back on the drooped metal form in the center of this formation. The overpowering burn of ozone and consecrated dust colored the still life nature of this scene. He hadn’t moved from his fall, suit still locked in its battle mode like it never left it in the first place. The greyed sheen of the outer layer had stayed unstained by the concrete coating and the dust that fell around it. And the eyes that had harbored the malice she’d witnessed before were cold and empty. But she knew that, underneath the peaceful stillness that sat amid their torrential reaction, laid something too powerful to ignore and too destructive to let be. Even if it was her student, even if he was her friend, she knew what she would have to do.
“Wake… Up…!”
The weight over Seth was considerable… but comforting. Nostalgic of his hand-me-down tomb, but cold. Too cold to think this anything but a more actualized tomb. The suit was drained, he was drained, and not even his drift into unconscious rest brought back his strength. But this was still a better outcome than the alternative. If Resent was really a part of him, then all he had to do was stay like this, and he could never hurt anyone… ever… aga-
‘grrrr’
“Wake up…!”
He was trying to worm his way in, draw him out of the martyring hold he held. That dark pit locked up and squeezed of all its contents. But all of this was his power, his body, no one else’s! No one else’s tool for their own ends!
“Wake up!”
No one else’s misguided target!
“Wake up!!”
No one else’s damnit!!
‘This is my body not your-‘
“WAKE UP!!!”
The void of subconscious thought shattered, the outside world flooding in against his will as he was forced back to consciousness through malicious alarm. Back to the crater he knelt in, full of dusted road and drained matter. Back to the main street he and Resent had fought over, and turned to sun scorched melt. And back to…
To the world staring down on him with judgment from on high. He felt the eyes on him before he could even open his own, too many to discern, too much hate and retribution to sift through. Like his nightmares had still refused to abate, but instead turn physical. But… but he knew one glare out of the countless, one that resolved before all others. One of concern, jading guilt, and a mild hint of scorned hope. Despite the weight pressing down with the condemnation of a god, he lifted his head up as the world returned through the suit’s darkened eye slits. Lifting it to see Aegis stood ready for a battle she couldn’t fight, flanked by the righteous malice given off by her fellow Elite, surrounded by the en masse heroes all prepared to render that judgment in full. The League had caught up with him, found him at last and at his weakest. And were dead set on ending this tragedy before it got worse. Dead set on completing the cycle their own way and damning Seth to his fate.
“Get it yet! They’ve come to kill you!”
Like a ghost and a parasite mixed into one, Resent bore down on Seth’s wakened mind, still visible opposite him but gaunted by the sacrificial drain. Burning glare still just as malicious as ever.
“So, is this what you wanted? To doom us both? To die pitiful and weak?”
His voice scraped at his mind, but his claws were worn to nubs, his burn reduced to an acrid tinge, and there were no more holes to worm into. But it still filled his ears and blotted out the yells and jeers that he felt from the army come to end it all.
“You think that will be my end as well?”
‘hgrr’
“I survived you before remember. That bitch with the ridiculous sword put a stop to us, but you were the only one that felt that pain. I will survive this just like before. They will tear you to ribbons, burn you alive, and crush the ashes to the dust you fear you’ll leave behind.”
He pulled in as close as the mental block could let him.
“But I… will… survive!”
A boastful draw back pulled him out of his focus.
“HehaHaha! I mean, you can’t kill what was nev...“
His voice faded out, focus dimming him to a red blur against a blotched landscape. His worn down mind too tired to keep giving a fuck! All Seth could see was the inside of his helmet, all he could feel was himself, all he could hear was… was that message from before. That etched message that Speaker left him, replaying like a dulled record, glowing red with Resent’s flaring boastful expenditure. He still had power enough to throw around… or… it really had been leaking out all along. A whisper against the abyss’ pull, not directed just uncontrolled by the gravity that held it together. A thread he could follow all the way to its hollowed center. A thread he could pull to unravel this living black hole. Seth’s eyes traced the message again and again. Felt the care that Speaker put into it, the pride he felt in him for trying to make things right. Felt his belief in him… to find that better path than they did.
He looked down, head heavy against the weight of the world ever pressing down. He could feel himself, an armored claw closed slowly with his eyes. The hand beneath run ragged and chaffed. But it was his. Hidden from everything by a cocoon of metal… and fear. Fear of resentment and wrath. Of distrust and paranoia. Of… a lie he had to live because he couldn’t even trust himself. A lie meant to hide in plain sight, to draw attention and disregard it as simple mimicry. A lie tainted by power, used against him without who he really was even being considered. A lie he was finally fucking sick of living blindly under! One last lie to admit to. One last lie to accept and break. One final grand lie that needed to be made right. The world refocused, Resent’s boasts filtered through as the dregs of disregarded condemnations filled his ears.
“…this be the end of your terror!! Of your threats to this city and its people!! Of your blind rage!! Let this end once and for all, so that peace may regain its reign!!”
Erdwut’s monologue wasn’t as impactful as he’d hoped, but it had enough of an effect. Enough get Seth back to his feet, to pull a leg up and refute his own penitence. A shaky titan of metal and contested terror, a drained well of power beyond their fathoming, a man… finally tired of lying about what he was. He was given power by the worst event to ever strike this world. He was party to the true culprits’ escape from judgment that they were sourly due. He wanted for nothing but to see them atoned, to have them be given the chance to even be heard before their ultimate castigation. But, standing amid the downpour of hatred and vengeful glares, he knew that none of that mattered anymore. The Garkah had resigned themselves to their fated punishment. He was a pariah too dangerous to be left alone, to be left alive. And his own resentment was staring him in the face waiting for him to see its own truth made reality.
He rose up from his crater, dust falling free and shaking loose, trailing him face to face with his Resent. A true revival of that titan damning the consequences that waited to bear down.
‘So… What if I want to live?’
Despite the grit in his thoughts, the strain in his admission, Resent’s glare lit up at his acceptance.
“Heh… You just have to show them what your power truly looks like, but you threw it away didn’t you? You doomed us both. Unless…”
‘Unless I accept you back in…’
“Yes… Together we can put an end to all of this. All you need is a little power to work with, to start back up the well. And I have plenty, but none of the material needed to pull by myself. But us, together, can show this world the error of its defiance of our existence!”
‘…So be it.’
Seth relaxed his body, shaky tension and focused blocks released their passive holds on what little was left over.
‘Let’s finish this…’
“And never be refuted…”
‘Ever… Again…”
The air tensed around Seth before his grip returned, claws tightened as power returned to his body. Resent was free to blot out his mind and smother his psyche with the thin sheet that remained. But their drained state was short lived, as the storm started up. The power he’d thrown away had not fallen far, unfortunate metal veins, surviving wires, the very ground keeping its bulk from returning fully to ground. Seth could feel it as Resent burned himself to feed his threads. His form flared in front of him, gaunt frame turning nearly skeletal. The power from below swirled up as he pulled at it, the air about him shifting in kind. Twists of drained dust followed the siphon in its spiral. And the first bolts of raked return from that master source flashed all in attendance.
The heroes watched, ready for when he chose his moment to strike, ready for when the order to put down this terror was shouted. But as the air followed his call and flashed to plasma, as he powered back up to face them, they made no moves to counter. Erdwut’s locking glare keeping them at bay. A true fight was necessary for this to end. Putting him down was not enough, they had to defeat him in combat. They had to show that they were worthy of protecting people after letting this metal monstrosity run free. Aegis could feel his will smother every rational idea before it could be thought, he would entertain no other course of action. This had to happen, they had to fight this battle even if it cost them. Her stance shifted, this power up felt different to his last. The pull was more directed and the source deeper than just a local power grid. She was going to have to contain it, but then again… that was the only thing she was even brought here to do.
The air around him churned faster and faster, flashes of ionization striking the suit with increased ferocity, and the weight of it ebbing away with each bright intake. He could feel the surface like it was his skin, the energy passing through it like the blood in his veins. His feelings were mixing with Resent’s, the tainted menace had burrowed deep in and made this suit his and his alone. That blotting sheet encroaching over Seth’s mind thickened, closing in and returning to that swallowing abyss. But even as his world faded to black at the edges, the red glare of that message, that reminder of who he was and who he wanted to be, denied that darkness its permanent hold. And Resent didn’t care in the slightest.
The storm swirling around them suddenly burst into full tilt. The dust churning into a devil raked by lightning from all sides. A dynamo of colossal proportions that recoiled the heroes at last. The wind, forced to swirl around, buffeting them back. But the rising field of orange energy relieved the assault. Aegis formed her barrier at last, as the drain looked to only increase further. Seth's eyes shut before he could see it, before it could kill what needed to rise, as the power coming in surged. He could feel the dust sandblast the outer layers, could feel his body numb away. He could feel the gaunt frame of Resent fill back in and his abyss take its hold over him. He felt him pass through, mix with his mind, take control of his body like every time he’d done before. He felt his psyche overlap his own, his mind fade as the world faded with it, as all that was left was his right eye focused on the one spot left in that totaling void. He felt his eyes reopen absent his will, illuminating through the whirling debris that clouded their ground. One blue and dimmed, plasma building and shifting away. The other blood red and burning, pure siphon seeking to feed upon everything in this world.
But those eyes shut back closed and left their silhouette to only be lit by the raking bolts tearing the air around them. And those clawed hands tightened against that outward will. Resent was left in the lurch as his control waned, as his power waned away. Form thinning again without him knowing…
That he was the one being siphoned away. The suit lurched in kind, still trying to exert his will but failing fast. He struggled, just as Seth had struggled for control, but his swallowing abyss, his tacit realm of empty void cracked as its depth could no longer be held.
“You… YOU BASTARD!!!”
The suit rocked as the struggle compounded, as Seth reasserted his control of his body.
“You think you can consume me!?!”
Resent’s form darkened, as the suit’s edges began to glow against the occluding tempest.
“You think you can just make me go AWAY!?!”
That glow crawled up the plates, the joints, the servos and rotators and every gap and edge this heap of cursed metal had across its tainted surface.
“I won’t just die like that insufferable oaf!!!”
The glow stretched through the neck and up the helmet, outlining the jagged maw straining and wanting.
“I won’t go quiet and let you forget all the pain you caused me!!!”
The eyes reopened, both burning with that glow… that overwhelming plasma blue glow.
“I WON’T LET YOU-“
‘WHO THE HELL SAID I’M LETTING YOU GO!!!’
The tempest raging around their chosen ground blasted apart as the air, the dust, everything of this material world ran in abject fear. As that maw burst open. As the suit could no longer hold back the storm roaring inside. The glow crescendoed into a pure torrential outpour. Like every bit of power Seth had taken in was being pushed back out at extreme force, energy doubled in its scale and set on a single guiding purpose. To fucking burn away this callous resentment and be free once and for all!!
The heroes were blasted into recoil, the air slamming them through the shield put up to protect them. Aegis’ shield could keep back the worst of it, but this was on another level. The siphoning storm burned away as they shielded their eyes, as that maw blared its fury for all to hear . For all to see. Like staring into the mouth of an active reactor dead set on melting down. Dead set on destroying itself and ending this façade. Cracks crossing plates and exuding more torrential glare only cemented this outcome, and forced Aegis to double her shield just to keep it contained.
The ground shook, the air shook, everything shook as the power flowing in and out pressed the suit to its limits. Resent was little more than a disembodied head fading washing out with the light tearing the suit apart. More cracks, more power, more defiance of this accursed cocoon! This wasted effort! This lost attempt at protecting everyone else from the truth of what Seth really was! Of what he had always been!! Of what his truth should have always been!! He was more than this tainted suit! He was more than this corrupted memory! This avatar of guilt and suffering! He was himself and nothing else!! No matter what anyone else said!! No matter what they could ever say!! And no matter what-
‘I AM WHAT I CHOSE TO BE!!!’
The light at last flared its last, washed the world away in its luminosity. The suit, the ground it stood upon, the ionized air, all of it shattered as that light tore away. Plates shattered, joints split and splayed, servos shot away like bullets, every piece becoming shrapnel of what was once a shining carapace. The ducking and wincing heroes returned their flashed eyes only to flinch as that heavy shrapnel slammed the shield before them. Resounding waves of rebuffing energy echo falling down the field. Pieces big enough to take heads off crashing away and scattering about the crater. Aegis held her stance as a gauntlet piece shattered apart in her face and fell to the dusty ground. A cacophonous, pitiful shower of destroyed metal and outward denial.
The last impact struck the ground ahead of Erdwut, the upper faceplate, eye slits and jagged broken teeth. The visage that had terrified his city, killed his people, reminded them of their long dealt with nightmares. Reduced to a glowing burned up husk fallen into the dust. the eye slit still glowing the last of his burn, that menace star going out at last. But, looking back up from that dead broken terror, the Elite were still faced with that very same visage. A silhouette still crowned by horns, countered by a reviving tail, falling back down from its metamorphic recoil. Those eyes opening once again, both a burning blue meeting them through the clouds kicked and billowed up, and scraping away at their buried nightmares. Because this shouldn’t be possible.