Seth held his ground, held it tight as he could. The air turned to blistering discrepancy, the chill of oncoming death and the heat of entrenched fury to equal for his body to react one way or the other. The light shining over him too bright to block out, like gods from on high decided to make their presence fully known. Trepidation too extreme to overcome. He’d expected to fight maybe a few members of the Elite, a real want to kick the shit out of Hothead had colored his expectations, but ‘SEVEN OF THEM!?!’ Damn near the entire team was walking out of the washed out backdrop. Only dimming in its exaggerated flare as they crossed onto the sand.
But this arguable holy kill squad was clearly not in full agreement of this oncoming fight. Aegis and Samurai were looking away, they didn’t want to be here, clear looks of regret and guilt below presentational stoicism. Hothead’s smug face countered this. He was coming in serious as well, finally wearing his suit. It was surplus, a navy blue base with patterned rings of fire sewn all over it. He even had a laurel crown on his head made of condensed fire. The other members looked much as they did the last time he saw them. Technomancer was eyeing him with disdain, his sensors still unable to get a good reading on him. Maglev was looking like this was a waste of time, barely regarding him at all. Ziyou looked like she’d wanted this, another chance to really fight. And Erdwut was not as annoyed, but his stoicism wasn’t hiding much of the glare he had.
Seth knew damn well that challenging doesn’t even begin to describe this. He hoped at least the rules would land in his favor. But of fucking course that was up to Para! His mother’s scarf trailed behind as he turned back toward the podium with all his own disdain blaring undercovered but undeniably. He was smirking down, smug as ever, but understood he still had to be fair in this regard.
“His challenge is simple, though that is in complexity not difficulty!”
The clock screen lit up behind him, clacking artificially so everyone would turn to it and see.
“Tinman has 15 minutes to knock each member of the Elite out of the central fighting ring! Once out of the ring though, the challengers may return under their own power! So each member must be knocked out at least once for him to win! No penalties will be levied for getting knocked out himself! And no holds shall be barred beyond what is expected of a duel in this arena!”
He swept his arms out as a final flourish.
“So let this fight be a true test of your resolve!! Of your strength to hold out!! And once and for all reveal your true worth as a hero!!”
Seth sneered through his view screen, thankful by the barest sliver of a margin that he at least made this sound hopeful. He turned back to the Elite, all seven setting foot into the ring, still lined up like they were posing for a photo shoot. He took a centering breath, hollow warbling echo filling the suit. He was going to need to go hard in order to win this. Would probably have to pull power from the arena. He needed to focus, keep control, keep contained and low. That’s all if he could even win this with even that. But a realization stopped his doubts, a flutter beneath his vision. His mom’s scarf, he needed to put it away before the fight started. He popped the chest compartment open and swirled it off his neck. Careful so as not to rip it or get too much dust on it. But… an uneasy feeling shook his grip, the eyes on him shifted, reflexive perception slowing things down like he'd just exposed himself to a predator. He looked up, Aegis was still looking down in guilt, but was saying something like her will was lost to her.
“Inside. Left shoulder bracket.”
Wait… ‘That’s the internal suit release!!’
Seth’s tension skyrocketed, the thought of Aegis ratting him out snapping his focus apart. He tried to shift back down, shove the scarf in quickly, failing as he hesitated for fear of ripping it. He stammered, looked down to keep accuracy, just jammed the damn thing in but…! But he heard the whoosh of a thrown down arm and the worst word there ever could be for this moment.
“FIGHT!!!”
His head shot back up, but he was no longer the one in control. Erdwut’s left hand already deep in his suit before he could even try to match. The click of the panel release, the rush of outside air, and the dread of Erdwut’s mailed hand around the collar of his connector suit. Stoic condemning eyes burning straight into his, no longer occluded by an emotionless helmet, and no longer tolerating his existence. Slow panels tore off their hinges, unhardened metal buckled and crumpled without power and focus on them, Seth was ripped from his suit like a half formed moth from its cocoon. Tossed away, throwing to the side of the ring like he was just in the way. Tumbling on his back, he focused up to catch himself with a hand and foot dug into the sand. The rebuke, the indignity, he tried to rebound and push off with his dug in feet. Tried to fight. But Ziyou was on him already.
A rifle burst of three strikes to his shoulder, chest, and neck knocked him back and off balance. His muscles stopped moving, twisted and bundled in over each other. She’d hit pressure points and turned him off his target. He could only watch as Techno leveled one of his mechanical support arms at him from across the ring. It fired two shots, globs of something slamming into his shoulders. The impact forced him the rest of the way upright, knotted joint subsumed and locked even tighter as the goo started to harden instantly. Suddenly a flash of silver, metal bars flying into place. Maglev coming from the right, binds locking around his hands and feet, and one last horseshoe looped around his head. As Gravity stopped becoming a factor. As his feet lifted from the sand and his inertia skyrocketed. As those bindings shot him away, sent him careening out of the ring and- *CRACK* into the wall.
The stone cracked and Seth’s head bounced off. What little focus he had shattered with his skull. The binds pushed tight into the wall, arch staking deeper in. The immaterial press of Maglev’s power forcing him taut and pressing his head to the side. The goop on his shoulders hardened solid as his muscles finally unbound themselves, complete immobilization from the outside this time. The world was a haze, sight faded white and spotty, realigning steadily and returning retinas forcefully disconnected. His head throbbed, concussion already getting put right but not sparing him the sensational backlash. He tried to push back, tried to free himself, but he couldn’t get leverage, couldn’t organize his strength. He stopped, had to focus, had to pull some power out of the wall. He just had to- *CKKREEEEN*.
The sound of metals being cleaved by heat and force stopped his attempt before it could start. The clang of heavy metal hitting the sandy floor threw what he had out the window. Dread and panic pushed back as he inched his vision back to the arena center, but his resolve cracked like the wall behind him. Erdwut was tearing his suit apart, like a zealot tearing down a heathen idol. Slashing it over and over again with his Eschenwald, molten earthen blade melting through the unhardened metals, baking away ferroceramic, boiling gel layer. Even the titanium skeleton was rent to pieces. Seth could only watch wide eyed as his life’s work, his only means of hiding his powers, his protecting suit was reduced to smoldering pieces scattered about the ring.
Techno picked up pieces, tried to gauge what he’d been unable to before. Aegis was locked away at the inner edge of the ring, wincing at every cleave, still too sullen to stand being a part of this. Samurai in the same boat, disappointed in himself for not speaking up but still duty bound to fight alongside his team. A final splitting strike tore through the scrap to the sand below, Erdwut turning up to the stands and whipping Eschenwald to his side, still dripping with molten slag.
“Let it be known that the League warned this one of the futility of his actions… the idiocy of his undertaking!! Though he made it this far, he did so with the benefit of metal and motor, steel and servo!! A hero that cannot contribute with the strength of their ability, the skill of their mastery, of the conviction of their heart is not Welcome Here!!! A powersuit is not a substitute for being a super, no matter how powerful it may be!! No matter what enemies it may best!! Even if it allows a novice to defeat a full laceroid, it has NO PLACE HERE!!! And so such artificial power must be DESTROYED!!!”
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The rings pressing Seth down creaked, his whole body shaking, refusing to accept, refusing to take this! His teeth gritted, his fists bleed, he saw red as his eyes tried to… wait. He snapped out of his spiraling, saw the red for what it was, his mother’s scarf floating toward him. Knocked away and thrown into the air, spared from his suit's fate loosed into the wake of his confinement. It fluttered on its meandering trajectory, carried by the aftershocks of all this callous force, drawn to him as if trying to return to him… but instead falling right into another waiting hand. Seth struggled again, forcing his head over to see who grabbed it, screeching the metal as he defied Maglev’s push, only to struggle harder at the sight of Hothead holding it out. His smug devilish face regarding his scarf like it was frilly nonsense. Shrugging and looking him dead in the eye.
“Sorry kid, you heard the man.”
Seth went wide eyed and tried to scream.
“Everything must go.”
His hand flared, and flames seared into the fabric. A torturous flail taking hold of the scarf, flames burning down its length, turning red... to black... to nothing. It flailed out of his hand as the world shut away, tried to escape its demise as it became all there was, but the fire refused to spare it before Seth's eyes. They turned thread to ash, color to soot, memories to hollow, and ripped away everything they saw fit. They killed all that was left of Frigateville in a malice. The last frill rippled upward off its conflagration, flames swallowing it whole. A dancing fade of orange and yellow, a dark grey puff of soot and smoke, and everything was lost. Completely... and utterly... everything... but… but… BUT…
Darkness, vertigo, the feeling of falling back. The wall didn’t give out but Seth’s psyche did. He fell past the Garkah, stymied by principle but desperately extending out to him to keep him in control. But they couldn’t reach him, nothing could. The last thing tying him to an old life he only ever barely knew was burned before his eyes. Still burning into his memory, repeating over and over, dying little by little with every repetition. He couldn’t even feel the heat it gave off in its death throes. Couldn't feel its warmth in his hand. The warmth of it bundled around his neck. He couldn’t feel anything. Not the magnetic press stopping him from saving it. Not the disappointed leers judging his weakness. Not even the regret that could have ended this before it started. Nothing… but an emptiness... that screamed to be filled. Nothing… but a hum… rising through his entire body. A resonance that burned, that demanded, that wanted for nothing but what has been taken from it, that could see no path ahead but the one it’s always been on. A wave, a tone, a hum. His and his alone, inherited or taken it didn’t matter. All that did, all that it could broke down before it to its simplest forms. Ones seen as nothing but targets. Power seen as nothing but a means. And so he pulled, and that power came flooding in.
The world snapped back to that horrid reality, perception turning it to a near still life landscape… in need of a violent redesign. The hardlight array buried deep in the wall rippled and flared, power wrenched through and from without care of obfuscation or coverage. Techno’s scanning equipment finally lit up in his face, like a small sun had just appeared in the arena. The Elite mixed in their reactions to the sudden shift in speed, trained perceptions and instincts desperate to catch up. Hothead still turned in his dying smug satisfaction, only just catching up to the rest of his allies’ reactions. But all of it. Far. Too. Late.
That still life was ruthlessly despoiled as the wall at Seth’s back cracked and baked, the metal pressing over his extremities screeching and burning, the hardened goo on his shoulders cracking under pressure from within and burning from without. And all of it rendered nothing as the metal bars snapped, the wall gave way, the goo disintegrated, and Seth denied this callus confinement to this world brought down to size. Overpressure and sparks, arcs raking out and flailing as his back left their sockets. His feet crunching back down on the sandy floor as Hothead only now reached an angle, his reaction leagues below his compatriots. His expression losing itself as his offense became undeniably realized. As he saw its clear and concise message written across Seth's contorted face.
“YOU GOD DAMN FUCKED UP!!!”
The still life shattered as all hell loosed itself at last. A monumental step turned sand nearly to glass, blasting it into the stands in his wake. A right arm folded over and aimed at Hothead’s side. And all he could do to prepare was complete his turn in time to receive a full force gut check… into the prevailing wall. Stone, metal supports gave way as he was slammed aside with extreme prejudice and shook the foundation of this hallowed den of pieces of shit!! But Seth didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, momentum far too great to be impeded by a casual tossing away of the trash. And not an ounce of will spared to oppose what his being demanded.
Ziyou was closest, the edge of the ring. She was moving to intercept but misunderstood how she was ever going to do that. His opposite foot cut his inertia in front of her, an opposing burst of sand and a right leg carrying everything left around to refute the 'bitch who thought she could look down on me!!' She tried to block, but only succeeded in shortening Seth’s travel time. Her guard buckled, impact crumpling it and shooting her away. Another back meeting wall with at least a little less force than Hothead, but more than enough to make her feel it. She bounced off the shattered stone as Seth followed through, foot grinding him to a halt and slamming another devastating step through the air.
Maglev was next, his reaction more matured than the others. A new set of metal bars releasing from under his metallic cape and flying at Seth. They were invalidated completely. A hand swatted into one, clanging it into its brethren until all were all were scattered away from Maglev's push. But that hand came back as it neared mister ‘too cool to fucking care!!’ It snatched his cape, metallic fabric crinkling and screeching as Seth slid to a stop before him and span violently. Woven metal tore and screamed as it ripped away, exposing the plain navy blue surplus suit hidden underneath it. Maglev was spun counter, his cape acting like a top string as it was viciously torn away. He spiraled uncontrollably to crash outside the ring, cape thrown down spitefully as Seth lurched down and another blast rocked the floor.
Techno was up next and he knew, sensors overloading and failing as their over calibrated detectors found that sun in their face. His support arms reacted faster than then he ever could, lining up shots and other unknown attacks. Both feet stopped Seth in front him, both arms locked to strike as he desperately blocked and fell back as fast as he could. The top mounted support arms tried to aim down and reacquire him, mechanical speed and precision a better match. But that metal machinery was dashed before it could carry out its programming, a fist proving their disparity in force. The others were dashed to pieces in kind before they could even compensate. Techno was left disarmed and cowering, but only guilty in ignorance. So Seth took another hard loaded step and pushed him aside with a suppressed right palm, though that was enough to send him tumbling and scattering. Seth just wanted him out of the way, a clear sightline on the bastard who started this destruction.
Erdwut was still stood over his destroyed suit, his only reaction a slow turn to regard what had happened to his team. A reaction Seth could not accept idle. Another blast rocketing him forward, over the disparate wreckage of his suit, passed Aegis’ matching concern tracking him without fail, straight for Erdwut. Feet scraped to lock, blasted another wake of friction glassed sand, and launched one final time at the only target there was in his eyes, everything inside him screaming for this, pouring all his power into his right to knock the fucking hell out of this stupid stoic bastard!! …But even this was not enough yet.
A sudden shift, perceptions matched in velocity. Dark green and matte metal spinning about, Eschenwald turned flat end on and careening... straight for Seth's head. A softly searing flat iron suddenly dominated his vision, and totaled his perception, and proving the folly of wrath alone. The en mass concussion just added on to that. Feeling returned, the barest sliver of Eschenwald's heat melting through to darkness and resonance burying him deep, but quickly disappearing as the world was bashed away again. Seth was sent tumbling end over end, sand sent spraying in his wake, more concussions to add to the pile and prove ever still this point. Momentum only losing out and sliding to a stop before the protected bench’s barrier. The violated still life finally disappearing and the world returning to everyone else. Trainees, shocked by the lightning fast proceedings, crowded up to see Seth's unconscious body before them. A seared in patch on the side of his head, his eyes limply closed, and his teeth still gritted. And the wafting cloud of ozone steaming off the still arcing metals of his connector suit.