“Get the hell back up!!!”

Her words were just as demanding as the day they first met, with just as much urgency and none of the restraint. But they were definitely ringing a lot more hollow given the weight flattening everything Seth was. A good weight, but still a little much.

“You… heh think I haven’t tried?”

Seth smirked up as best he could, only managing to cant his head in her direction. His knees were numb and buried in the dust, his arms dead weight at his sides. Only a meager sway kept him upright and not falling flat into the emptiness surrounding them. The one rumbling as their tormentor fell forward in near enough symmetry.

“I can’t move… Not enough to matter anyway.”

Aegis poured down on that damnable grin. Not quite scorn but close enough. This was a bad fucking time to be depowered when you’re the only one who can fight this thing. Her concern was overtaking, trying to burn into resolve but only screaming down that shared tether toward a very bad eventuality. One full of the deaths of everyone rushing to fill the gap stuck kneeling on the ground before them. All swords, questions, and narrowing bravado. But… still she wasn’t thinking only of their lives. She was holding to something she’d long needed to refute already. Something she was destined to do.

“You’ll just have to beat him yourself. Your mom keeps telling me you hold back too much so. So… it’s about time you were the one to let loose.”

That hooked grim tension flinched, mirrored in her comrades but paled in comparison. She was fighting admitting without words, but it was too late now. They had seen just enough. Felt more than enough. They were alive after all. But Seth knew it was just the tip of this iceberg. And that there one last piece to this puzzle fearing completion.

“But… I think you’ll need something more than a shield.”

That toothy visage turned shakily about on a wincing volcano with knowing fear dousing its fire. Connections had breed truth and truth was needed right about now. Even as his false stoic glare melted to that tainted shameful fear.

“Something that should have been ‘relinquished’ a long time ago.”

That fear hit singularity, blood dragged out of his features as his crimes had a witness impossible to silence. And as their situation burned its truth into his overgripping hand. Too audibly for anyone to ignore.

Aegis turned up to his target. To Erdwut, her leader in title and need. To the one she’d been beholden too for fear of rocking their boat to capsize. The one she’d had to hold back for and whose niche seemed to demand constant reaffirming to her face. The one who was the ‘best fit’ to be the face of this team. Yet now… Now he was folding in on himself. Gritting too hard to voice his admittance. Unable to look up at the face he’d flatly demeaned. And holding out his gleaming blade for her to take like a stolen piece of candy from a convenience store.

“…P-please… Give it back after.”

His fury and stature dissolved like tissue paper, his pride made into a puddle to be stepped over. Everything he’d blared to the world oozing away as what it covered ate through. As a crime was unveiled without knowing its existence. A rising condemnation fought to kick that puddle into spray like a false reflection of the truth. For all the times he’d talked down on her, all the times she’s had to hold back so politics wouldn’t jeopardize their mission, all the times he’d put her in her ‘rightful’ place! Aegis wanted nothing but to deck him into the ground and make him feel every bit of fury he’d callously ignited. But… but their situation was bad enough. And she needed a weapon put an end to this.

Her hand could only just hold back from snatching Eschenwald away, from righting a wrong she didn’t fully understand, but still yearned for reprisal to bury this fire. But as hands changed that full understanding came to life in flashing instant. Paracausal will washing over, finding what it had sought for too long. What it had been denied for too long. Finding its own twin, wielder and all. Finding its rightful place, its destined holder. And giving her the power she had been too long denied.

A rushing tension and spreading warmth, residual creep and tagalong. A shifting of energies, a sampling and amplifying of this new power set. Mixing abilities, setting its shape just like her shields, giving her scope and focus paired beyond just the mundane form. An artifact of immense power, of passed down authority, of shared stature with her set upon shield. Simple impenetrable metal replaced with history reflecting through gleaming surface, both great and immediate. A set split between founders, hidden away to preserve and deem worthy. A quartet made trifecta, turned disparate duo finally finding each other. Images of past battles and struggles against flashing by, al unneeded in this demanding moment but pouring out without care. This was something more, something beyond, something too much. Already ignited fires bellowed to towering. Already held back potential bursting at its seams. Muscles tensing to near breaking, mind blistering too fast to comprehend. An excruciating truth. But something more than fitting to end this once and for all.

That gleaming blade aligned off her side, familiar terrifying cold calculation turning about with a bearing solid steel. But shifting to fit this new paradigm, this meant for conduit host. That gleam flashed side wide, flat metal to reflect and show its true truth. An orange glow cutting into the white, highlighting that edge and bearing it to grander scale. A bastard to end all bastards, no longer molten and searing. Now shining energy, hollow and razored with impossible edge. A roiling shimmer setting its wavering pointed pattern within, a new and different fire to paint this new slab. A shimmer that spread, a simmer that bound, a familiar fury turned physical and pressing its call. A call long overdue, the truth of Aegis finally made known.

And an enemy to make regret every allowing its reveal. That golem of matter was rising back to its own stature. That red glow was reigniting in its eyes. Its knees tried to raise it off the blasted land it burned, but its weight refused it standing. But still it growled at the results of its revenge, at the unscorched path still filled with life unrued. A malice familiar, rebuke and refusal. Another stopping of its machinations in abrupt blocking orange. But now… this was a fight.

This was an unveiling, a counterattack over long and absolutely ecstatic. That grounded subjective terror falling into sympathetically catharsis. Unable to not feel what was lost in this cold tensing stare down. This was her fight, this was her time to shine beyond legacy and pride. This was what her mother wanted. This was her liberation. This was the time. This was that monument to resentment lurching to tense. This was that simmer becoming slicing thrust. This was everything gripping to what may. All except Seth pulling his highest and saying the one thing that’s been needed this whole damn time!

“KICK HIS ASS AEGIS!!!!”

And getting just what he deserved for setting it all off. A mouth full of dust at danger close, and a skyscraper of condensed air made shot. A flash of that shimmer and orange, an upward swing carving crater to aerosol without reach, a few meters run up turned to category five back blast, and that stubborn eye wall turned to bear open sky. A slash though everything standing in the way. Matter, metal, and resenting all. That slicing thrust turned blade beyond blade. And that resentment made to feel the emptiness of another mark of strength against its surface and straight to its core. Stolen metal disappeared, buckled at its edges, turned to more discernable shrapnel by sheer drag force alone. Spiraling aerials of spalled existence caught in the overwhelm sucking a hole out of this monstrosity. A slice wide from groin to shoulder, a body carved by so much coopted air. And that crimson glare widened against its imposed will. Even its all-out was not enough. And so it would finally know the weakness that would purge its hold. Its own fear.

That glare fought this titanic recoil, raked its loss whole and back into crashing place. Oozing threading stabbing away, loosing more than could be replaced. It would not die so easy, he would survive even if it killed him, but they would not receive so quiet an end. A hysteric colossus being flooded with whatever could be called adrenaline for it, catching up with the lurch and the giant slayer that would carve it to pieces!

Thrice-glass burst in overstepped laws, a zigzagging wind up traced in orange and this counterattack still loosing. Feet not even touching the ground yet torching it to friction fire and slicing it to more precise cuts. The over weighed thigh bisected and caved. Follow through blasting through chest and slow arm. Final rising strike tearing that shoulder away again. Metric tons of corrupted ore dashed to splatter, wind carved and weathered into crevasse in instants too far out of pace. Recoil throwing this golem around, sending it spiraling in too many directions at once. And yet still oozing that binding being.

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Threads shot back, force majeure slamming them out and back into place. Matter was waning but still irrefutable. And wherewithal still lost in the terror of survival. High set claw already coming down with the mass of the wrong Buddha. Open palm finding target still caught in follow through twist. But meeting the mundane paracausality over flesh and bone. Crater cratering as meteoric velocity finally found verticality, but rebounded off that hoplite impenetrability. A ringing crash and overpressure, more kicked high dust sent away. More bedrock threatened with compressive deconstruction. But no damage beyond, only more wind up thrust taking sight of overextension and overdue punishment.

A twirling arch of orange blur, that arm split length and sent splattering apart. More proof of the futility in the boulder shrapnel crackling across that makeshift visage. But only empowering more brazen despondency, as that double faux maw ripped open in kind. A roar and a disregard, the other arm raking through the earth it came from, tilling in meters wide gouges and wanting nothing but an end. Meeting prepared stance and shield, finding nothing but pushed around distance as simmer shot counter. And cruel cold body wiped round in cleaving kick off. With more purpose and exasperation than she could hide away.

A fire star of ore and stone, shrapnel from another ripped through arm sent into the stands. Sending the still awestruck scattering for what cover wasn’t there, but only shooting to land one piece in place. A billow and heave and pressure wave recoil. A mass of rock and inlaid metallics rolling to a stop beside a hacking grin covering back as best he could. It rippled with loosed ooze, threads still seeking their whole. Their master. But left within reach of one more deserving of the power they held. And Seth was feeling mighty hungry.

A claw forced its way up in line, whipped weakly but struck gold, and found the screeching cancer that needed to be put in tune. Red veins recoiled in jagged cracks, returning to the energy they always were. The solid ore they sequestered crumbled apart in their lines, locked away power dragged out as well. Every joule, every electron, all of it needed. All of it dashed to powder as that claw had its fill. Those buried knees kicked up and reasserted their stature. The heavy billow cloaking him rocking with shockwaves from a fight he just got the invitation to. Concentric cuts tore the dust, that resonance reverberating its revival. But something was missing. A poignant parity to put this all together. A target that toothy grin took a shining to. The one still holding a bit of overshared power.

“♪Hey Buster♪”

Awestruck bulk flinched, like she’d barely registered he was there before. But now…

“♪Its time to share♪”

She was next up on the relinquishing block.

“B-but… But I just got him back!”

The slab weighing down her hand drew her gaze, a longing rocked by more pressing heaves of the ground. Her conflicted expression shifting like that full body mirror she called a blade was reflecting its own determination back at her. Knocking down what it needed to, and driving her grip up to let that handle seat one more set of claws.

“Don’t worry…”

Seth took the weight and heft for all it had, vibration balancing out with willful ire. Arm dragged down, but more than ready for the excess. And that maniacally rising smile for one last sharing of power.

“I’ll take good care of him!”

Grip transferred in fear and weight shift, the other claw still trailing dust slamming down on that oversized surface in ringing buzz. Edges tracing over, discharge scathing nothing but highlighting every buried vein and artery this mechanical heart beat. Forcing it, no, showing to a higher level. One it already knew and was already prepared for. One whirring into redshift and turning the air on all sides to torrential soup. A tone all its own felt in every bone. A will transcending its metallic limits. More than enough force to make its want known. And maybe a bit too much enabling as that claw whipped off like a match to an unfused cannon soaked in nitro. Talons locked, stance shot down, borrowed sword and gripping claw moving as one in over speaking tandem. And more than enough tension wrought to kick all this weight straight to the heart of this living hell!

A whirling slicing hell of blade and matter. Aegis turning towering being to diced ejecta. Crimson connectors running like hurricane sheets, but refusing to lose what was theirs. A spinning top of edge and simmer sliding wide off undo forces, reformed sword in shielded hand and already pulling it back into battery at her side. As that toppling statue crashed back together, stature diminished but fervor only rising. That red glow a near true sun, backstop of crashing crush beneath only adding more weight to the comparison. And flare to the hissing restoration. Fusing maw already roaring back into form, claws wide and lost to the wrath of battle. Those eyes only seeing the executioner sent to put them down. And not the hurtling missile of matching crimson tag in!

A thunderous clang of metal on metal impact, sudden and deep cutting recoil bifurcating that golem’s face all the way to the real fake head beneath it. The hanger on sinking talons into that rocky outcrop it called a face and glaring its own feral draw down. All that confiscated power leaking its master’s hysteria in, but just flooding the scramjet that was Seth’s need to tear this effigy apart. Those talons already slashing him higher, revving blade levering in and along. A rock saw of splattering debris crescendoing into half that roar bursting into shrapnel. Sword kicked out, and out of the way of the one screaming in.

Another spin to win more torrential loss, that falsified visage decapitated en mass. And that damnable tether spreading its overdone nonsense for Aegis to follow along. But their opening was there now, right down that golem’s gullet. And that near molten suit screeching within. The one right in the sights of both swords in tandem. One rounding over high in the wake blistering, laden and wanting revenge and security for the one it cares for. The other following through wide, back around for another go of the merry-go-round to hell and full of the judgment that destined authority deigns. And both side on to crush that offensive helmet pancake flat!!

Simmer met oscillation, will met will, shared condemnation matched in booming expulsion. And that once towering menace was blown straight back the ground. An airburst of stolen matter returned to Earth, decimating more already decimated and turning the battlefield to shrapnel. What tried to cloud was overpressured away, what tried to reform was caught in paracausal concussion, and what was left turned to aurora and thunder in the wake of almighty “Sit down!!!” But still there was too much left to just leave be.

Recoil scathed away at fresh moonscape, near weightless orange pushing everything away, boots already on the offense as that offending left over returned to solid matter out of the wrung thin air. Piecemeal uptake taking in discharge on its way down, but fervor smashed cold to fall back to Earth. Too slowly for Aegis to just allow. That tension burst, her shield arm wound in line, that snout remade allowed no reprieve. The shield whipped back, hoplite bitch slap sending that fusing weight to ground another trench into the blasted bedrock. That helmet whipping out in friction with a maw full of rock and half a consciousness between glowing eyes.

And a harpooning slab halving it more. Weight over weight putting down in more deserving fashion. Talons already tearing after his thrown weapon, that manically fury dragging both along for the ride to just vengeance. The armor twitch and clawed at its intrusion, still too much life left to tear out. A real claw scathed the ground and wrenched that slab up and over, leaping with it the aim and proper flanking the game. The armor was carried round and whipped upright, false talons scratching it to a stop, feral fight still ripping at the blade in its face like a wolf on a leash. Until it took its toll and tore free and out of the way. That true bastard holding back everything but the scream it slashed through Resent’s torso.

Ooze and energy, ill held and pouring out. Reformation firing as fast as it could but not allowed to keep up. Seth adding in, hammer slash carving from shoulder to hip. Plates rent to debris wreathed in red glow, slapped back together but failed to hiss fusion. Another orange cut, Aegis taking shoulder to flank and completing this cross out. Arm loosed to gravity but held at bay by faint threading. That glow holding, but the end was close. Just needed more damage!!

A flurry of over revved metal and thickened over hope, back and forth from both sides of this parasitic abomination. The other shoulder widthwise, another decapitation, the kneecaps, a hip and thigh. A blender of fury deserved, layered amalgam being weathered down to crackling stump. The last of its will to survive slashed out with every cut and every weakening return to a form that wasn’t theirs. The last of this hysteric strength outlasted and burned away. One final flourish cut clean through the maw, edge clipping its path just under that eye as its glow persisted. Weight pulling Seth back as Aegis followed suit, helmet clear cut through to collar. Oscillasaurus scathed a rut in as it fell in at his side as the sword Aegis would have to name herself came in at hers. And the result of their tandem handiwork stuck staring straight at its out lasting brother.

A rickety stance, a marionette held aloft by rusted wire and fraying thread. The armor was in pieces despite its continued conglomeration, a patch work of plates crisscrossed in barely lit gaps. Vague aurora of connecting electrons flickering their last, entropy at last allowed to take its own toll. No source close enough to grab hold to, empty earth sucking away what he couldn’t keep. And enemies locked together by tethering will already proving to be his better. There was nothing left but for this collapse to become terminal, and for Resent to just accept that he had taken enough. It was time to let go. And so that skeleton of stolen armor flicked out and lurch to the ground. Knee striking and shattering apart, body crumbling into a heap of empty metal. Of burned through layers wishing for the death they had fought against. Toppling until only a single eye slit was left glowing up. Staring at the relief washing over that maniacal grin.