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 twisting too equal for his body to know how to react. 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. To maybe take on 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 bout. Even through his open air eye, Seth could Aegis and Samurai keeping their eyes averted. They didn’t want to be here, regret and guilt below presentational stoicism. While everyone else had no such qualms about pouring out their wanton emotions. Hothead’s smug face countering their guilts completely.

  He was coming in serious, finally wearing his suit. It was surplus, a navy blue base with patterned rings of fire sewn all over it. But his superiority complex demanded more, so a ring of condensed fire ran about his head, and formed a laurel wreath like was claiming Apollo’s reincarnation. If not his Harmony’s empty mantle. The other members looked much as they did the last time he saw them. Technomancer still bearing scrutinizing disdain, what sensors Seth could parse through unable to get a good reading on him. Maglev was looking like this was all waste of his time, barely regarding him at all. Yet still snatching looks that bore much the same as Hothead. Ziyou wanted this, wanted another chance at a fight. And wouldn’t take technicality laying down. And Erdwut’s stoicism wasn’t hiding much of the glare he had. Yet it still looked past him and saw something else he had no bearing on.

  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’s up to Para isn’t it!!’

  His mother’s scarf trailed behind as he turned back toward the podium with all his own disdain blaring behind glowing mechanical eye. He was smirking down, smug as ever, but understood even he still had to be fair in this regard.

  “His challenge will be 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 he must contend with a true onslaught in order to win! And pour his all into making sure he holds this ground!”

  ‘Oh! Is that ALL!!’

  “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 against odds so very far above you!! 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 helmet. 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 with that.

  But a realization stopped his doubts, the flutter beneath his vision. His mom’s scarf, he needed to put it away before this all went to shit. 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 shifting, a 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 thing there ever could be for this moment.

  “NOW FIGHT!!!”

  His head shot back up, but he was no longer the one in control of this world. 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 a mailed hand around the collar of his connector suit. Stoic condemning eyes burning straight into his, no longer occluding distant memories, and no longer tolerating of his existence!

  Slow panels tore off their hinges, metal that waited to be hardened 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 as his focus caught up and a hand and foot dug into the sand. The rebuke, the indignity, a surging need to countermand. He tried to rebound to push off make this anger realized. Tried to fight back from this sudden exposing. But Ziyou was on him already.

  With a rifle burst striking. Shoulder, chest, and neck knocked 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 a mechanical support arm leveled from over Techno’s back, the man not even caring to look his target in the eye. It fired four shots, globs of something slamming into his shoulders and hips. The impact forcing 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 and screech, metal bars flying into place. Maglev just waving a hand and locking binds around his hands and feet, with one last horseshoe looping around his head. All for gravity to stop becoming a factor. As his feet lifted from the sand and his inertia skyrocketed. As those bindings shot him away and sent him careening out of the ring and-

  *CRACK*

  Slammed him into the wall.

  The stone cracked and Seth’s head bounced off. What little focus he had shattered with his skull. The binds pushed tighter, arches staking deeper in. The immaterial press of Maglev’s power forcing him taut and pressing his head to the side. The goop on his joints hardened solid as his muscles finally unbound themselves, complete immobilization from the outside this time. Pure over kill just casually displayed.

  The world was a haze, sight fading 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 had torn, 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 unprepared metals, baking away ferroceramic, boiling gel to sludge. 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 picking at the pieces that still glowed orange and sparked, scrutinizing and demanding answers of them. Aegis locked away at the inner edge of the ring, wincing at every cleave and molten hammer down upon what scattered about. Samurai in the same sullen redoubt, stood disappointed in himself but still duty bound to stand alongside his team. Ziyou disappointedly sneering but too off angle, Maglev not even giving him the glare on his face as him pressed down against even this small defiance. But Hothead’s eyes were absent, caught in flashes of smug satisfaction.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  A final splitting strike tore through Seth’s scenery, his hopes and want to stop this callous exposure. Erdwut rising off the smoking slag about him and turned up to the stands, whipping Eschenwald to his side still dripping with molten metal. And bearing his condemnation just as venomous.

  “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 their own strength, the their own skill and mastery, with their own conviction of their heart is not WELCOME HERE!!! A powersuit is not a substitute, 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 IN THIS WORLD!!! And so such artificial power must be DESTROYED!!!”

  The rings pressing Seth down creaked, his whole body shaking, refusing to accept, refusing to take this! Take such blatant lies! Such kowtowed bullshit! 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 this overkill pontification. Fluttering on meandering trajectory, carried by aftershocks of all this callous force, forced away by heat and fury so utterly wrong. Drawn back to him as if trying to return…

  Yet falling instead 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!!

  Devilish smug regarding his scarf like it was frilly nonsense. Shadowed impure by the radiance of his self-appointed crown. As he shrugged off sentiment and looked Seth dead in the eye.

  “Sorry kid, you heard the man.”

  As he went wide eyed and tried to scream for all his lungs were worth.

  “Everything must go.”

  As his hand flared. And flames seared into that vibrant fabric. A torturous flail taking hold, flames burning down its length, turning red to black... to nothing left. It flailed out of his hand as everything fell away, tried to escape its demise as it became all there was. All there could be. All that this world had, all it brought to bear, all it dared lay upon him, was refused for this one… dying… thing…

  But those flames refused to spare it. Even as it drifted its last before Seth's eyes. As thread turned to ash, color to soot, memories to hollow shapes, healed over hole to all there was of him. As it ripped away everything that it saw fit. Killed all that was left of that forgotten reviled town, in a malicious lapping hunger. The last frill rippling upward off its conflagration, flames swallowing it whole. A dancing fade of orange and yellow, a dark grey puff of soot and smoke. Till everything was gone.

  Lost.

  Hollow.

  Empty…

  Completely… and utterly.

  Everything.

  Gone.

  but…

  But…

  BUT…

  Darkness, vertigo, the feeling of falling back. The wall hadn’t give out but Seth’s psyche did. He fell past the Garkah, echoing in the dark and desperately extending out. But they couldn’t reach him, nothing could. The last thing tying him to an old life he had only ever barely known was burning 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. Not even its warmth in his hand. 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 ringing that burned.

  That demanded!

  That wanted!

  That needed for nothing but what has already been taken!

  That could see no path ahead but the one it’s always been on!

  A wave, a tone, a roiling resonance. His and his alone. Inherited or taken it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered! All that did, all that could, broken down before it to its simplest forms. Ones seen as nothing but targets. Power seen as nothing but a means. Nothing but fuel. The light. The world. The existence of it all. All of it seen through empty eyes. Through hollow voids. Through this hungering existence. And so he saw and beheld…

  And so he pulled.

  And all that power came flooding in.

  As the world snapped back to horrid reality, to perception turning it to still life landscape. A painting of details too fine to ignore, frozen and locked away. All that regret and revile. All that satisfaction and inquisition. All that injustice… in need of violent redesign!

  The hardlight array buried deep in the wall rippled and flared, power wrenched through and from without care of obfuscation or coverage. Wires flash melting as alternation became direct instance, capacitors torn into uncouth. Rubber and glass and hardened eclectics crashing apart as it all came through. Lightning flashes buried beneath sandstone sacrifice boiling it to charring crack.

  Techno’s scanning equipment finally lighting up in his face, because a small sun had just appeared in opposition. The Elite’s mixed emotions shifting suddenly into speed, trained perceptions and instincts catching up to what had already transpired. Hothead still turned in his dying down satisfaction, only just feeling what the rest of his allies’ couldn’t not see.

  All of it though just so...

  Far.

  Too.

  Late.

  That still life scene ruthlessly despoiled, as the wall at Seth’s back cracked and baked, rang out in plasma burning halo. The metal pressing over his extremities screeching and alight, the hardened goo on his shoulders cracking under pressure from within and burning from without. And all of it rendered to nothing as the metal bars snapped, as the wall gave way, as the goo disintegrated, and as Seth denied this decree. So he could bring this world down to size.

  Overpressure and sparks, arcs raking air and flailing free, bringing copper scales into glowing relief. Feet crunching back down on the sandy floor, turning it to glass. Hothead only now reaching an angle to bear witness to what he’d done, his reaction leagues below and blasted to smoke. His expression losing itself as the offense he’d perpetrated became undeniably realized. As he saw its clear and concise message. Written across Seth's contorted face.

  “YOU GOD DAMN FUCKED UP!!!”

  And so this still life shattered as all hell loosed itself at last. A monumental step turned sand to dust and dust to glass, blasting it into the stands in a wake of dancing stars. A right arm folded over, aimed and fired. And all Hothead could do in preparation was complete his turn. And receive his full force gut check into the prevailing wall.

  Stone, hollow space, metal supports giving way, as he was slammed aside with extreme prejudice! To shock the foundation of this hallowed den of pieces of shit!! But Seth didn’t stop to see his fruition, couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop! Momentum too far gone and too great to be impeded by a casual tossing away of the trash. Hurtling him away with not an ounce of will spared to oppose what his being demanded. All out revenge!!

  Ziyou was closest, the edge of the ring. Moving to intercept but misunderstood how she was ever going to do that. His opposite foot cut inertia out in front of her, an opposing burst of sand and surge glister. 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 in and shooting her away. Another back meeting wall with at least a little less force, a little less fuck you. But more than enough to make her feel it. Bounced her off the shattered stone as Seth ground to a halt and slammed another devastating step through to the sky.

  Maglev next, his reaction more matured in spite of near total disregard. A full set of metal bars releasing from under his metallic cape and flying. And completely invalidated. A single hand swatted away, clanging each together and raking them in to no one’s control. But that hand came back as Seth neared ‘Mister too cool to fucking care!!’

  Snatching that cape, metallic fabric crinkling and screeching as Seth slid to a stop before him and span violently. Woven metal tore and screamed as he let it rip, exposing the plain navy blue surplus hidden underneath it. Spinning Maglev counter, cape acting like a top string as it was viciously torn away. Sending him spiraling uncontrollably to crash outside the ring. Cape thrown down spitefully in the lurch down, so another blast could rock the floor like no weight could.

  Techno next and he knew plain as day, sensors overloading and failing as their over calibrated detectors found that sun ripping through them. And stomping to a stop in his face. His support arms reacted faster than he ever could, lining up shots and unknowable counters. Because would not live long enough to fire again.

  The top mounted support arms tried to aim down and reacquire him, mechanical speed and precision a better match. But that metal machinery dashed apart before it could carry out its programming, a fist proving their disparity in force to be reckoned with. The others being dashed to pieces in kind before they could even compensate. Techno left disarmed and guarding for his life, but only guilty of ignorance and complacency. 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 still stood over the devastation he wrought, the only reaction a slow turn to regard what had happened to his team. One eye turning to bear down a caged fury. An equal force, and equal loss, but one Seth could not accept! Another blast rocketing him forward, over the disparate wreckage of his suit. Past Aegis’ concern tracking without fail. Past Samurai’s surprise flattening his redoubt. Flying, surging, 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 the power he took into his right to knock the fucking hell out of this stupid stoic bastard!!

  …But even that was not enough yet.

  A sudden shift, perceptions matched in velocity, fury matched in uncaged hate. Dark green and matte metal spinning about, Eschenwald buzzing and turned flat end on. Filling peripheral in totality. A softly searing flat iron suddenly dominating, totaling his perception into maxed out default, and proving the folly of wrath alone. Because someone will always be angrier than you.

  The en mass concussion just adding on to that.

  Feeling returned, the barest sliver of Eschenwald's heat melting through the darkness and resonance that buried him deep. But quickly disappearing as the world came ripping back in full. As it all was bashed away again. Seth was sent crashing 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.

  This violated still life finally disappearing, the world returning to everyone else. Recruits shocked by the lightning fast proceedings, crowding up to see the unconscious body that was just got blasted before them. That was somehow the same Seth they had been training beside. A seared in patch on the side of his head, eyes limply closed but his teeth still gritted. A wafting cloud of ozone steaming off as sparks danced over copper scales overloaded.

  As all in attendance now knew, and felt, one lie bleed into an iron truth.

  Seth was not the powerless one here.