Seth could hear it.
Like that barely discernible whisper, that once incomprehensible and low thing, so deep within itself that even its escape gave it energy by the simple release of the pressure upon it.
But now… it was everywhere.
Now… it was seeping through to his very core.
Blotting out anything in its path. Blinding him to anything but what was ahead. A creeping void at the edges of his vision. An abyss revived…
Or never defeated in the first place.
The Garkah echoed through it like travelers on the wrong side of a mountain range. Their community and shared emotion so far away as to not even be a star flickering in the emptiness.
Leaving Seth with nothing.
All he could feel, all he could express, the only thing that shown through this swallowing abyss…
Was a hate beyond imagining.
Hate… at being made to work harder and harder just for some stupid dream. Some useless hope of being a hero after everything that had happened. After everything he’d caused!
Hate… at the bullshit and ridicule he had to suffer through the whole way. At having to relive the hell he escaped from time and time again. At having the only things left of his past life destroyed before his own eyes for someone else’s twisted amusement. Because of someone else’s horseshit ideals!
Hate!!! at the pain and struggle of it all! At having to go all out and risk everything just to tell that same bias to eat shit and DIE!!! And then losing it all despite everything!!!
A hate… that despite it all boiling to froth in his mouth, to vitriol in his veins, to a want to rip it all down and suffer it no more, had a source. A cause. A meaning. A purpose.
A hate… that became fuel. For something deeper.
That would broach no other than who had forced this upon him.
“P…a…r…a…”
The darkness of the arena flared crimson as Seth rose from the charred and strained bench, electric tendrils still clinging to the wall burned to jagged spread at his back. He took a step like a mountain had decided to move, disregarding everything in its path as it should. The transparent barrier protecting this bench of failure melting and popping under the assault of mere presence. Arcs scorching through and curling it back screaming, metal pushing and caving it to a grotesque puddle under foot. Every step titanic, slow and thunderous like a god scorned. The sand at his feet glassing as his still transformed suit burned with the heat of too much made real.
But…
But every step brought something else along with it. This creeping darkness highlighted in red groaning agony grew dimmer. That whisper permeating through him was becoming just as distant and stifled as it all. His stride, his pace, his even step. A nostalgic easing calm rising with every foot fall into the silence. Like the matching of a rhythm with his heartbeat. Like choosing to keep going, to leave behind another hell.
He could feel himself beneath, numb and buried like over thick sheathing on telephone wire. He was heavy, straining against the burning excess inside of his suit. He couldn’t move his mouth, but he could see right through the burned away view slits like they were his eyes. It was gradual, slow, but the dim arena gave his mind a chance. As his steps lulled the past to just that. It was still there, still burning inside and around him, but waning down to warming fire with each echoing hypnotic step toward the door.
The world soon stopped being so empty, low voices echoing. Adding. Dousing this anger down to depression, giving right of way to that numbed body. And what surrounded it. He could hear the reception still going on in the foyer, family and friends congratulating the new recruits and partying with the other heroes. He couldn’t make out who all was there, but he didn’t care, he couldn't. To see, to know would only reignite what was being desperately managed. His mind knew full well it shouldn’t remain in this state, it couldn't.
He could remember what Aegis had said, that he just had to hold out for someone else to make this right, to take his case and be the one to bear this heat. He just had to hold on.
But really, so deep within, he just wanted this day to be over already. To just disappear into the emptiness of sleep and have everything be behind him again. But that meant… he had to get through this overcrowded party to even have that hope.
The door ahead seemed smaller. A clawed gauntlet grabbing the handle like an oversized mitt. Burning it under its grip, narrowly ripping it to slag by undue strength too strained to hold back more. The light from the outside burned into the helmet, but dimmed before he could squint. And what was waiting for him battered what resolve had been won.
The foyer was packed beyond reason, most of the audience still here and wanting. Smiling, patting, hand shaking, and cajoling. Giving to and giving out and making all feel welcome. Thronged around these newest additions to herodom. Joining with their families and the veterans who fought today. Around…
‘Too… many… people…’
Seth couldn’t see all of them, but familiar voices cut over the crowd like beacons. Like… a scanner on a radio seeking through them. David… Kabar… Phazor… Aegis… Ziyou… and…
‘Pa…ra…’
No other Elite remained. Mediknight probably already back at the medical levels. Samurai and Kaz definitely off celebrating somewhere else. Erdwut and the rest conspicuously absent, but no doubt off to a different assignment if his manner could be trusted. So it was just these three…
That remained…
In his wa-
‘N-no…’
Deep breaths hissing out, forcing him to see. To focus. The crowd was dense and amorphous, flowing from recruit to hero and back. But a passage through the main thoroughfare of the periphery was kept clear out of courtesy. Drawing Seth’s need for any out.
Lumbering him toward it with purpose, wearily walking him through part of the crowd surrounding David. He couldn’t will himself to move faster, just holding it together was dragging on something. But for some reason the crowd parted and… cowered back as he approached. He didn’t pay them any mind, he couldn’t, not even the stares they gave in return for his existence got through to him. But still he heard them complain about heat, and startle as he dared be among them.
‘Need… away…’
His suit was getting too hot to even walk around in, skeletal frame finding an in through the numb, singed at the parts left barren by the loss of their gel and what was ever left of his connector suit. He felt puddles seep through his toes to the floor, felt fabric char and burn around him. He had to hurry.
The tiles of the periphery creaking and burning under those metal talons, the tail dragged along and scorching its own meandering path. He couldn’t stop.
He cleared the crowd in but a few agonizing steps, turned and started toward where the dormitory hall started. Toward sanctuary. A momentary uplift, a second wind against the drag. But all it brought with it was more resolution in the hell surrounding him.
As the eyes upon him returned in horrid full, the eyes of prejudice, the eyes of malice, of worry and concern, of pity and disgust. Of fear. They didn’t matter, they shouldn't matter, he just had to make it a few more meters to get out of this crowded powder keg. They were scenery, they were nothing, just other people too ignorant to stop looking. There was nothing left to stop him, nothing between him ending this accursed day once and for all. Nothing at all-
“HEY TINMAN!!!”
Nothing but a sudden searing halt. As all the progress made was obliterated. As Parasonic yelled out over the sounds of the crowd. Like the first striking of a dry match.
‘You… just had to… Didn’t you???’
It took everything he had left to not turn and face his challenger. To just let him make an ass of himself for everyone to see. To not let go and murder him here and now and forevermore!
But the quiet that resulted from this callous call out only added to the pressure crushing him down. He could see out the right side of his helmet, a part in the crowd was growing, revealing where he and Aegis had been entertaining their audience. The center of the foyer, and the densest part of the party. Like they were required to be here and show that they care. That the Elite hadn’t just fucked off at a moment’s notice.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He could see Aegis’ face in her palm, but fought to avoid looking at him for as long as he cou-
“What’s wrong!? Having trouble coming to terms?”
The world was trying to fade away, blurring like his eyes were focused wrong. The only clarity the exact spot he was trying to avoid. The crowd was completely silent, the awkward situation only added more and more and more and more!! He could see the stairs, see sanctuary from it all, but his body refused to move. The periphery fading to an indistinct smudge of no meaning at all. An impossible destination.
Not…
the way…
forward…
The tiles at his feet melted under his breaking will, as he struggled to keep from acknowledging the demon staring him down, from inevitably falling away again and destroying even this little bit of his life left to him. But every word was like another strike of that dry match.
But there was something else, like the faint smell of rain. Of hope. A tinge, an emotion, cutting its way through the void and the distance. The Garkah finding their way to him in more than vague, crossing those mountains as fast as they could. But they needed time. Time seemingly afforded as he heard Aegis’ palm grab Para’s shoulder in restraint.
“Okay Para, that’s enough-”
And then the sound of it getting slapped away.
“No!! That’s not enough!! I warned him from DAY 1 that he wasn’t meant for this! DAY 1!! And yet here he is, unable to deal with reality!”
Every fiber of Seth’s being screamed at him, betrayed his will, wanted to turn this mouthy bastard into a paste streak across the foyer. The tiles boiled under his feet, but the tinge finally broking through enough to get to his ear. Threat blaring across with all that the Garkah could muster to this desperate cause.
“Seth!!! Listen!! You need to hold on!! You need to stay here!! We can get you clear but you need to stay yourself!! You need to HOLD ON!!!”
A feeling like hands pressing on him, like the first day in that closet mountain tomb. Pushing, trying, demanding that his body move just one step more. But the part in the crowd grew, and Para continued unabated.
“Unable to deal with the fact his suit dominates everything he is!! Unable to deal with what actual combat demands!! Unable to pass a challenge without resorting to going all out and hurting people!!”
“Seth you need to shut him out!!! Don’t listen to him!! Focus on me!!!”
That phantom touch, those words nearly in his ear. The part in the crowd grow wider, people pressed back. Avoid ire, but also wincing away in pain.
“I mean look at him!! He can’t even turn his suit back!! He can’t deal with his own problems!! Can’t control himself at all!!”
“SETH!!! You NEED to HOLD ON!!!”
So many hands, so many people trying to keep him here. So much effort expending to stop-
What was already too late.
As Para shifted, turned away from Aegis’ aggressively glaring face and looked straight into Seth’s struggling eye.
“In the end… he never deserved to be a hero!”
That eye finally saw him.
Every fiber and sense saw nothing but him.
Felt nothing but the tiny nerves flickering beneath his skin.
Knew nothing but every contour and pour and wrinkle on that smug universe collapsing grin.
As that match was held alight.
And dropped to the powdered ground it sought to burn.
Perception snapped the world to a screeching halt, time frozen in fear of what had just been awakened. It even fell away in slow motion, as the pull dragging Seth down deeper into himself was too slow on the uptake. Like he’d fallen into an event horizon of his own out of control being. Till soon there be nothing… no one… an empty void overlapping his existence. Until there were only two things left in the entire world.
Para
and
Rage
Trained reactions, percentile advantages, all paid their dues as the heroes in the foyer caught up to this sudden change of universal speed limit. Eyes moving like they caught sight of a predator in their midst. Heads starting to turn as breakneck bloodlust took charge of it all. Aegis moving faster than the rest, but her only winnings were a vain turn toward that danger. Toward that armored head finally turning in full. Turning with all the malice of that scorned god brought to bear. As the horizon of its snout dawned that left eye burning.
Like a supercritical supernova!!
Perception and reality finally caught up with one another, but the change imparted was too fast for even Seth to feel. Faster than the world could be taken from him. Faster than what should even be possible. Aegis was pulling her arms up to stop it, muscles bulging out like they were about to snap in physical limitation. Heroes across the room were just now stancing as if they’d only just found out the ramifications of their careless faults. And Para, illuminated Para, was finally catching up with the bare minimum of what had occurred. As even sight was too slow to keep up.
Because that supernova had willed itself into his face, filling this world beyond its seams with a plated clawed fist. Ripped air and existence apart catastrophic, the gap between evaporated like it was never there in the first place. Hollowed out in a single sudden gargantuan step.
And bringing the reckoning overlong due, for all the crap he dared put him through!
Strike at equal speed. No obstacles, no refs, no intermediaries, no threats. No keeping him in line. No escape this time! All of Seth’s being solidifying and railing, power boiling like blood from a wound and wisping jagged to physical law failing. All the hell experienced powering it beyond, burning everything away as fuel to the engine gone wrong. Because that fist was going rip and rend. And never going to be stopped… ever… again!!!
To Aegis and the observant, to the subset of world that could even perceive. One instant Seth was across the room burning a hole in the floor, glaring a hole through Para’s head. The next he was in follow through where Para used to be, arm thrown out with all its energy rippling reality in jagged bloody electricity. Contact faster than it could ever have been seen, plate mail going supersonic at point blank range. Metal crunching Para’s cheek to all the wrong ways, his face barely able to contort in the ripple, nerves too slow to even signal this impact. As that oozing red flared across and through. And took away what it could. Trained and hardened bone shattering, toughened flesh tearing apart, and an eye ceasing to exist in its socket. As power rejected him. And made him pay in kind.
The imperceptible instant flashed before everyone’s eyes, as the material world caught up with this sudden change in reality. First came the torn apart air crashing away, whipping at all in its path. Overpressure pressing out as a body forced it away. Only for it to smash back together into the vacuum of that body’s path, snapping fire into existence as atoms crushed together. Tossing all pressed away back toward.
Next came Para shooting away, smashing through the glass fa?ade of the foyer and into the night sky over the Hill’s obscene stair way. Blood trailing a spiraling path, as back met shard and gravity met challenge.
Finally all the aforementioned actions lead to their inevitable and opposite reaction. The physical laws reasserting their power. The rebound due coming back cavitation. With the only thing left the almighty-
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
People, heroes, everything sent aside. Screams drowning in the deafening hole. Lights and displays shattering and made shot. The lobby crushing into darkness and fire. Surviving glass exploding out, unable to contain the wind force pressing out against it. Bodies flung against walls and displays. Eardrums bursting in wholesale slaughter. A wave of people cratered horrific.
But Seth didn’t care! Seth couldn't care! For his actions, for the consequences, for anything but totality! Because he was not in control anymore. Because all that mattered, all that could be, all that was known, and the only thing left to his very being-
Was tearing Para apart!!!
Aegis barely withstood the blast, feet digging ruts into the tile as she guarded and counter thrusted against overpressure barrage. A stinging moment of pure ringing strain and she was back up, staring at the monster she'd failed to stop. A desperate reach tried to catch, to stop this metal behemoth from causing more than what one instant had caused. But a foot had already cracked the floor, and was intent on following its target into the sky.
Another less intense kick in the teeth, bash her away to buffet what was left of the foyer. Smashing the bare framework of the fa?ade across apart, to rain over the front of this false mountain of justice. This rivaling mountain of metal and spite disappearing into the night, trailing glass into a fine refracting dust against the dark. All of it reflecting that burning red eye.
The night middling, cloudy and laden, but Para so clear upon its backdrop. As a flare shot up to rend it open. The air rushed passed as servos screeched midflight, straightening upright and bringing both mailed hands together over head. Over half conscious and slowing drag, over Para tumbled upright to face that sky. Those stars being denied by that wanted totality, by that burning eye overtake and falling as them all.
The arms spiking his gut more mundane, momentum cut through by sheer force of down. Para’s back cratering several steps of concrete. Leaving him to suffer and gag for a solid breath bashed out. As that near a ton of metal fell straight down and made its own crater on the stair above, slamming him airborne by the weight of it all. Right in line for a plated talon to kick and cave in his side. Send him parabolic before slamming back down to give chase.
Para took a tumble again, bouncing off step after step in a sickening pinwheel. Excessive weight crushing after him step by several steps at a time. Catching up again with a fist brought high and down on to his chest. Half whole and fighting hard, Para guarded, but his arm shattered and he was bounced off another shattered stair, the snapping sounds mixing in with the crumble of rubble.
He rebounded up with his legs in the air, a claw subsuming one of them pulling him up. Tearing into it with power oozing out without regard or control, as it dragged him high overhead. The whole suit continuing to crash down the stairs at increasing speed, and bashing this bastard with every other bound. Still conscious enough to put his arms up in defense, but more breaking snaps followed along with the crunch. Momentum taken hold of, flinging him from side to side. Skipping him back, concrete scattering and more bones breaking with brutish display. Till there was no stairs left to break him upon.
Both hands adding to the hold, snatching a hand and digging in jagged, lifting his body overhead. Talons tore to a stop and devastated the stairway over the last few stories, as those claws flung him down to their base. The whole suit flipping over, Para crunching down in its moon cast shadow, the concreted path shattering to dust in both of their wakes.
As that torrential weight slammed down farther, talons clawing away at all the built up inertia, eyes still locked on their target with all the nuance of a true suicidal star. The concrete and asphalt of the foot path turned to powder, clouding this new venue to obfuscation of what was demanded. Chunks of stair rumbling down the incline of the Hill, adding more dust and debris to crown this revenge. The street lights illuminating everything to a hazy swallow, as the suit rose from its landing and bore that dirty light. Claws trailing fried concrete and oozing caustic existence.
There was nothing standing between them and Para. Nothing between vengeance and consequence for what has been done. Nothing between monster and the one who woke it up. Nothing that could stop him. Nothing that could stop it. Nothing… but-
*ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEHHHWWWW*
But those daring and able and blind to true justice.
HERE
THE MIXTAPE IN QUESTION.