“For the record, that is a royal heirloom that you just tossed into the stratosphere.” Reign stated with mild annoyance.

“Then you probably should’ve kept it at your side.” He glared at Reign as he spoke, jets of gold flames still leaking from his shoulders after the last attack. “Now, should we call it quits or is your test not over?”

“I don’t know how fights work on Terra, but here they end when one party can no longer participate.” Reign replied smugly.

Roun’s anger mounted. “Your funeral.”

“Roun, no!” His summon, the spitting image of his companion soul yelled, but it was already too late.

Roun’s beeline for Reign was interrupted by a crimson lightning strike powerful enough to put him on his back—or in this case on his stomach. Reign cackled as entire area was blackened under the discharge from his dagon cannon miles above them.

“That attack was strong enough to put down an adult dragon.” He cackled, as red cinders danced across what was left of Roun’s hooded jacket.

Unfortunately, the former Synchros host seemed a tad stronger than a dragon. Even as the residual dagon crackled along his body, Roun willed it onwards. First his palms pressed into the dirt beneath, then his body pushed upwards, before he looked up at the unnerving, grinning face that glared down at him. His gaze shifted only briefly to Reign’s upward pointing right hand, before Roun pushed himself up off the ground. Once again red lightning engulfed the battlefield, but this time it was met with green flames.

Reign couldn’t believe his eyes as Vabbian’s hammer drop was stopped by Roun’s outstretched arms. Once again, the force of the attack dissipated outwards under the influence of the Itami prince’s aesis, but before Roun could follow up, Vabbian was bouncing off his guard and unleashing a powerful, swinging hammer strike at his head. Roun easily shifted his weight onto his back foot and drew his sword from its scabbard once more, intercepting the attack with the broad side of his blade. Once again, Vabbian’s attack was stopped in its track, but this time there would be repercussions. The Titan heirloom has been forged by the finest craftsmen and enhanced through centuries of magitech, while Roun’s blade had been picked up off a shelf at the headquarters of the Rogue Special Forces. The latter shattered violently under the impact of Titan’s Call’s war-hammer, casting a cloud of splinters everywhere.

Both Roun and Vabbian recoiled from the blast of shrapnel, but neither were hurt by it, allowing the massive muscular summon to prepare himself from Roun’s predicted flare up. It was only then that Roun realised what had blasted him earlier. As he launched a swinging hook kick to a still hovering Vabbian, he watched as the massive head of Reign’s hammer opened up and shielded the summon from the attack. Having opened up into an umbrella of sorts, the hammer saved Vabbian from immediately being dispatched, but the force of the attack still sent the shadow hurling directly back into Reign’s form. As Vabbian hit Reign’s chest, the Titan Emperor also caught the weapon that was once his hammer.

With the head now unfurled like an umbrella, Roun watched as it draped itself across its master, forming a plate-armour cloak around Reign’s body while the shaft turned into a small sword.

“Ready to stop hiding behind that construct?” Roun inquired as he began to close the distance between the two slowly.

“King’s don’t fight men who willing choose to be peasants.” Reign shrugged. “We have valets for such things.” He retorted as he too strolled towards Roun.

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“Aesis, on me.”

Once these two men reached striking distance, the battlefield erupted. Reign didn’t even move as Vabbian lashed out from his body, through the armoured cloak, in his stead while Roun unleashed a flurry of blows of his own. The Titan King was amazed as the speed at which the two moved, each driven on by vast external power reserves to fuel their preternatural speed. As Reign poured his energy into Vabbian, his speed and strength only increased, to the point of taxing Titan’s Call’s unique soul-forge. But each time his speed and power increased, so did Roun’s, driven on by his direct connection to the font of power that fed their abilities.

As the exchange dragged on, it began to look more and more like Roun wasn’t even moving. His limbs blurred into a flurry of green and gold streaks, while the armour that shielded his left arm splintered like his sword before it. As the exchange deepened, Reign poured all of his energy into Vabbian but Synchros still hovered over Roun’s shoulder, watching as her summoner poured all of his stress and frustrations into the battle. Where boredom and annoyance had only just given way to intense focus, a new expression was dawning of the reluctant prince’s face.

Exhilaration.

It had been a while since he truly went all out, an even longer since he had the luxury of enjoying it.

A grin broke across Roun’s face as he began to push Reign backwards, forcing the Emperor to pull out yet another stop.

Roun wasn’t the only one exhilarated by the battle. Reign’s own grin widened as he tapped into his greatest trump card. Soon his body was overrun by the wild, red, electrical surges of dagon. Up until now, Roun had been too uninterested in their conflict to truly pay attention to his clan energy type, noticing only that much like his own veranos it amplified Reign’s outputs. But now, the energy’s function became crystal clear. He could see the normally rhythmic fluctuations of Reign’s soul become frantic as his dagon tapped directly into this spatial singularity. He watched as the young King’s lifeforce poured into channeling core, amplifying his existing abilities even further.

As his spiritual energy drained, the man’s red hair bleached white at the tips, and as it did Vabbian’s power increased further. First, Roun’s advance stopped but soon Vabbian began to push him back. To Reign’s delight, Roun’s attacks became more focused and concentrated as Vabbian’s speed and strength both surpassed him. Raw ability was now replaced by years of honed technique. Blocks turned to parries and then deflection, his focus shifting from stopping attacks in their tracks and instead to using the momentum of the massive summon to throw it off balance. Slowly the angry brawler died and the martial artist in him was reawakened. In an instant the maelstrom of blows ceased. Roun had managed to catch Vabbian’s attack and pull the bruiser into an armbar, before throwing his weight into the lock and moving their skirmish to the ground. As Vabbian was taken down, Reign was left with the split-second decision of going to the ground with the two or once again relinquishing his energy to Vabbian so that he could do what he was summoned to do.

As the shadow was pulled out of him, his armoured cloak went with him, providing the necessary defence to make his scrap with the former Synchros host manageable. Unfortunately, he was also playing into Roun’s final gambit.

“This was fun.” Roun’s stoic summon stated before taking aim at Reign.

The emperor cursed inaudibly.

The searing golden discharge from aesis’ palms brought the most fun that Roun had had in years to an abrupt end. As Reign’s augmented form dissipated into the tainted ether, Vabbian also vanished. Roun sighed lightly, watching the Titan King’s regular body slowly reform from the ether.

“Seriously Syn… Aesis?” He scolded, but the construct just shook her head.

“You know that you can’t keep this up forever.” She admonished her would-be master.

“Yeah… but now I need to take him back to his city.” He rebutted.

“Unlikely.” Aesis shook her head, motioning to a number of Titan soldiers emerging from the fog.

Roun just chuckled at the sight.

“Not as dumb as he looks, I guess.” He shook his head, dissipating Aesis as he did. “I guess I’ll leave the rest to you.”

His words echoed as he faded away on the ethereal winds.