"Please tell us you have something!"

"It- It's not meant for this!! Even if we had the spare power, it can only manage so much!"

"We've all agreed! But will it at least save him!?"

"Ye-yes… but the power-"

"Take from the machine itself then! By your own admission it is over dense!"

"Because it needs to be directed!! If containment fails we won't know where it will-"

"That's fine! Because anywhere's better than-"

Upon a road turned shower of asphalt and mercy. Behind vanity bursting into fury cyclical. And with blade turned wide like a steel girder sunrise. Wanting nothing but to sweep this menace away.

Buster charging with weight to match her opponent. The suit raking low and launched forward in kind, but its moves a shadow of their former speed. Reverted to heavy clawed steps tearing through the road, as that massive blade came in.

Retained reflex, a doubled armed guard slammed up in the way, the deafening clang of metal on metal as they defeated each other with separate backing. The blade recoiling like a pinwheel in the wind, but that new momentum far from wasted. Her stance reversed, hand relinquishing and body spinning around. To align that imparted inertia to the fullest. That same recoil stymied any counter attack, only fought through as her next swing came fly around. The suit formed a shoulder guard and side stepped in, freeing a hand to deny this unilateral. Another clang and recoil, but she did not spin in place. She leapt off the ground, let force swing clear like a seedpod in the wind. With a counter weight for a propeller.

Instead striking this Buster in the face, the suit was now countering that blade coming back high. An unballed claw bracing and catching just short of the slicing tip. That arm bunching hard, palm slammed with everything put in and more. With the whole thing pushed back just as hard, asphalt cut to ruts to keep their poise.

The blade was stopped, but the damage still done. Despite his subsuming, his depth within, Seth could feel pain from his hand. A touch of cold from both metal and air. A drip of blood leaking out the side, trails run along contouring plates. Along his arms and across that shoulder. Now his was the disregarded defense.

Buster shifted to cleave her advantage, pressing hard against that bleeding hand. Her smile returned as she saw her success in running lines, but with the obvious taint of malice. The suit growled and pushed up, bringing the right back into the fray, but could do little to strike out with so much blade to traverse. So that bleeding claw slipped up the edge and pushed down hard as the other palm slammed the bottom in reversing fulcrum. The suit's speed may have been reduced, but its strength was far from hampered.

A heavy reverberating gong rang up the blade, and Buster was dragged skyward off her feet, hands still retaining their grip on the handle. But despite her new orientation, she was not out of control. Counter rotations, weight shifting around, and her sword was pulled from out of the suit's throw. Whirling around with overly trained precision, that titanic blade kicking dusted asphalt about as both were landed right without a step out of line.

The suit disregarded her outlandish reflexes and stanched Seth's hand closed. The blade had broken through, but the threads had still caught it. Bunching up enough to hold on the sides and stop it from cleaving their arm apart. But it still shouldn't be able to cut in so easily. The unneeded streetlights flickered as it pulled power and healed up the wounded flesh and metal. That same power starting up that softened glow in the eyes. But it was obvious it was drained beyond what a few lights could muster. Buster had the advantage, but it wasn't so-

*CRAck*

The suit turned its head in slow order toward that incredulous roadblock. Toward the idiot who had the audacity to shoot it in the back of the head! A single smoking rifle in the line made it clear. The left burning a little brighter in the now cowering soldier's direction, but that distraction was all Buster needed. Another explosion of forward motion and sweeping return to form. The suit wasn't unaware in its seeking glare and turned up another shoulder guard as she swept in from the right. It braced hard, poured that power into the leading plates. But before impact that blade spun. She'd held loose with one hand and whipped the blade like a roller with the other. All that weight fed to Magnus as it scraped across that hardened guard. Climbing it with sparking spall, striking over and over till it caught the horns, and bashed all that momentum into both of their heads.

Recoiled, disorientated, this abhorrent blade kicking off and ringing Seth's skull against itself. But Buster wasn't done. She landed down off her leap, retook hold of her blade and redirected that momentum back over and at their rounding left. She swung away like a batter against the world's heaviest baseball. A guard made against the haze forced through, feet digging in as the sword struck home. Another clang of metal on metal, but the guard wasn't going to be enough this time. Asphalt gave way and the both of these overlapping beings flew out end over end, shoulder skipping off the road and flipping over.

A dragged claw stopped the tumble, more ruts dug into the gradually ruining road way. Skidding itself to a stop, the suit felt Seth's pain, the sting of that oversized slab again. A new line cut in where it had tried to block, oozing blood and denatured gel alike. That damn blade wasn't just dumb metal. Another pull of power to heal, the surrounding buildings flickering out, and a whine from-

*CRACRACRACRA*

An APC from the side, cannon opening up, plinking the suit hard with thirty millimeter shells. Turning it to roar harshly against its fused maw, buzzing thunder against cannon fire scattering over the helmet. A greater burn growing too bright.

"STOP FIRING DAMNIT!!!"

The commander desperately yelling over the radio as the cannon ceased. The look of fear in him had dissipated as the fight looked to sway, he had something in mind that gave him back some hope.

How pitifully sickening!!!

The suit glared down the line, but turned back to its real opponent before she could start up again. Her demeanor shifting to smug understanding, she knew this plan as well. But all of this meant nothing as the suit burned on despite its fatigue. It flashed its claws, discharged its disdain, and charged at her with all the speed it could wring out.

Buster had long since shifted back to an offensive stance, but shifted again to meet the suit head on. She stabbed ahead into its wide stance, but even as allowing as it was, the suit was far from open. It pulled to the side, let the whole left drag as that slab stabbed nothing but air. That trailing left pulling tight and running down this over extended grotesque excuse for a sword, sparking across its surface in suspiciously even intervals.

Buster ducked back as that claw cleared and came for her face, the whole suit leaping up in the middle of her stance. A metal claw grazing her cheek, tearing a hair line cut. Her smug expression wavered only slightly in the light of that red glare. But she forgot about the tail.

It whipped around in her personal space, swiping its heavy metal limb around under her blade and into her gut. Buster was thrown back with the wind kicked out, feet staying under and crashing away the inertia. A hand held tight to her bruising abs. The suit completed its spin, staking down and rising up with a new found devilish pride. This wasn't so one sided. But even a slight celebration could be cut short by-

"NOW FIRE!!!"

The commander yelling over the radio. This time directed and in command of the-

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Of the next shot taken. HEAT shell splitting air and field apart, thinking Seth was off his guard. The suit was not. The pulse generator charged by simple proximity and fired without delay, sending the shell spiraling past the head as it turned its burning red eye down the gunner's sights, haloed by the round detonating on the already devastated roadway. That was their plan, distraction from both sides to allow for one solid hit. Then they just had to stay as close to Buster as they could.

A claw stabbed the ground, underground wires exposed and ripped of their charge. Overused muscle and nerve cried in exhaustion, but this was no time to be slow. The burn in its eye intensifying before it immediately dropped lower and shot off toward Buster. Talons chewed through the asphalt as the suit snaked into range, opposite claw kept low to the ground for a massive upswing.

Buster shifted off her cradling and brought her sword ahead, the pain in her gut causing her to wince out of reacting to counter the suit's charge. But instead push and turn her blade out sideways, freed hand propping a-mid-sword, prepared to block for a change. The suit raked up the width of the blade, another sequential spark shower highlighting contact. The impromptu metal wall forced up, a clear line of attack created just for that asphalt trailing left. But that was short lived.

Buster turned her blade down, traction and handle heft forcing it perpendicular as it grew in luminosity. As she stole what advantage they had earned by so much wrung out speed. Full rivaling weight brought to bear as backatcha.

The suit receiving a face full of slab as that gap evaporated, Buster steamrolling into it like a linebacker, crashing it out of its own inside blitz. Armored feet skipping off the ground without staking as velocity increased. But this wasn't complete loss.

The head pressed to that almost green hued metal, close enough to feel it. To hear it thrum! The sword was an oscillator, vibrating rapidly in place. That was how it got through, that was how it could cut.

Well no more!!!

The oscillation had a source, a core to this blade like a magnetic heart, and the suit had a defibrillator with no oath baring its use.

Claws gripped the sides of the blade as it threatened complete inertial death, intent on catapulting them high and adding gravity to their enemies. Instead the suit regained stature and stabbed its talons down hard, breaking the both of them to a crawling stop and tearing through the road with callous disregard.

Buster strained to get him unstuck, to get free of the suit's grip let him fly, but it was practically buried in the asphalt as they came to a grinding halt. Right where it wanted to be.

The pulse generator charged up again, the strength in Seth's threading pulled out to fuel it. Helmet pulling back, horns arcing with electricity, and a forceful whip slamming it down onto this abomination of steel. The pulse loosed, stopped that oscillator dead, caused it to build up tension where it once released with rhythm, and set it against its wielder.

It lurched, rebounded all that weight against itself, against Buster, against everything. She received a face full of her own metal, was sent flying haphazardly without the control she'd flaunted prior. The suit received just as much, head snapped back by the out of control blade, but it could keep its ground. Hunch back over off the partial concussion. The energy expenditure was getting the best of him, but it had the edge now.

The suit tensed, that eye burning up with a malicious masked grin. It stabbed into the ground again in a sprinter's stance before the rut it had been locked in exploded. Claws trailed dusted road as they balled into fists. It pulled away strength again, localized the pulses to the right arm. Buster was off balance, her blade in a state like cardiac arrhythmia throwing it about under her grip. Only moments to wrangle her blade before the suit came in and struck it again.

Another pulse releasing and slamming the blade back into her, kicking her back a few more feet. She flared her frustration, dug ruts of her own by heel, whipping that blade back behind her and tightening her grip to quiet its terminal heart. The suit pulled more power, more strength, charged up its arms to pulse one after the other. Buster's massive weight shift stopped her momentum, but her face read like a roaring fire. The suit stared her down with dukes up and ready, Seth feeling himself smiling unconsciously inside. This just became an actual fight, and this abyss was way too excited.

The asphalt shattered in unison as both fighters exploded forward, rights locked to attack with wild abandon. Buster gripping tight with both hands, a multi swing combo set to carve him to ribbons. The suit tightening its fists to near armor cracking levels, pulses swirling around waiting for release. First impact seeingblade meet fist and expectation shatter. Both recoiled, armored cracking from the impact but refusing to be cut. The pulse a frame weaker, but still enough for the blade to lose its edge. But Buster more prepped for this now. Shifting the momentum like before, carried by her blade over to strike from the other side even as it writhed. As the suit launched its next attack in line.

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Edge met fist again with similar results, but the blade's heart was losing rhythm concurrent, becoming too unstable for all this overblown grace. Yet Buster countered it, stabbed down to ground for a stable hold, and shifted her grip as the suit loosed its next hit. One thrown with too much malice, set to kill that magnetic heart once and for all. But the sword tore flat, as Buster finally let go of its hilt.

The pulse fist struck flat metal and recoiled it without anything to stop it, from seesawing all its weight into the suit. The hilt smacked the helm with all the force put in, rang in more concussion and knocking it low as Buster leapt after her sword. Canted angle and forceful push back, stuck in the ground like a vaulting pole, her body scrunching tight as she could manage, and coming around with as much momentum as she could muster. Both feet aimed right at this rung aloud head.

A double kick slamming into the side and toppling the suit like a deposed statue. Not much comparable force, but enough to flatten what was left of its concussed balance. Buster ending up the same, her blade pulled her in odd directions and she tumbled back and on to the ground in shared fate. Seth was dazed from the constant head trauma, but the suit was able to reorient quickly, flipping over and twisting up right into-

"FIRE!!!"

Another tank shot, a fat laden shell. The fight had brought them close to the bollards, but you shoot what you have regardless of blast radius or collateral damage. The burning eye flared as the suit whipped a pulse harboring claw in deflection. Outright striking it to tumbling passed like all the rest but-

*BOOOOOOOOOOOMMM*

A little too close for contents. The kick and heat crashing against their back, forced its way in and battered all it could. Everything nearly thrown forward as Seth's ears bleed from the danger close pressure wave, and his back singed as metal overheated. The battlefield shrank as clouds of dust and soot choked it up. Buster only righted herself after the shell had passed, not wanting her head taken off. She winced off the blast wave as well, preferring to look back in annoyance toward the tank that just gave her tinnitus. And yet whipped out her blade up, righted the oscillator and prepped for more.

The suit splayed and roared its exacerbated menace, bending over and lurching forward. But its step was stymied by the striking of more thirty millimeter impediments from the right. They still shattered across his armor, but Seth's worn body recoiled under the heavy hits. The suit was pulling too much strength. And Buster saw her chance.

Launching forward with her sword pointed ahead as the cannon died down. The suit presented a haphazard guard to the metal rain, but still caught sight of her advance. Pushing its guard out and shifting positions, sparking against the blade as it skewered passed. Buster kept running, swinging her blade back as she got distance and rounded on the left. As another burst of cannon fire stopped the suit from giving chase, shells showering over its back in tossing cacophony

The suit tried to charge up a pulse, but the power was drained from everything around, and it couldn't take everything from Seth or this wouldn't be much of a fight anymore. Buster sprinted up as the cannon ceased, locked and swung with just one hand seated, leaping in to catch the head as it rose off the cannon fire. The suit rose up, but quickly dropped its knees, horns skimming the blade as it ducked under it. It twisted and sparked, but followed her along as she let that momentum carry her out of range, skidding to a new stop to keep running beneath the gunning. Just as another burst of cannon fire opened up, but quickly fell silent. Two shells scattered over the armor but no more. Because the suit found a new power source.

The tank's drive motors fell grinding and silent, the APC's autoloaders stopped dead, as did all their engines. The electrically run turrets and gun drives, engine spark plugs, ancillary batteries, the fucking radios! The whole roadblock sapped out from under them as the suit rose up, charged and ready to counter again.

Its eyes flared, horns arced electric, claws balled as it stomped down off its pull and stanced up to meet whatever she had. Buster meeting it with gritted teeth, but grim determination held quick. She pulled her blade in tight on her hip, both hands holding it for a lancing joust. Foot depressed and cracked the torn up asphalt. Her suit bunching, muscles tensing past their limit. She was going to finish this come what may. And tension knew no longevity.

"YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

She exploded forward like she was charging a full battle line, road turning to rubble with every step. There was a metal clang under her roar, a tube filling and closing. But what mattered right now was catching that blade and tearing it free of her titanic grip once and for all. The suit sidestepped, but left its right to sway as cape for Buster's charging blade. And counter with similar cruel intent.

A foot pushed into the asphalt, shoved their left into the flat of the blade but held the pulse. Till it clamped its right over the still slicing top and loosed that pulse without discrimination. The blade kicked in, punched Buster in the kidney with handle held for dear life. So like a shot put, she could swing about in full. Get tossed back like so many before. Her grip too strong to break even with odd angle and stunning force, but throwing her around was good enough for-

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

The suit had turned with its shot put, left eye looking out from its slit. As perception reared its grim head…

As another HEAT shell shattered the air toward it.

The tank didn't even need to move, but its stabilizer hanged loose like it was being propped up. Just waiting for that helmet to reenter its sights.

The eye flared as it realized there wasn't time to charge a new pulse, or dodge out of the way, or… Anything! All it could do was shut that eye as hard as it could. And brace with every fiber of both their beings.

The metal rod out in front slammed and smooshed against the armor, splaying into friction heated detritus. The armor rippling in concentric waves, but refusing to crack. But that was just the detonator. The fuse blew in millionths of a second, setting off the concave cone that made up the main charge. Bursting in fiery destruction, but shape directing it in the sole point of contact. At Seth's eye.

Focused, jet-like, disintegrating the detonator rod, melting it into a molten copper spear. The outer layer of armor scouring away, the aluminum and ark metal blend not meant for immediate protection. The conductive main layer, its crystalline density losing out to force and heat industrialized. Weakened threading and siphoned off structure not enough to hold it back. The explosion pushing melt away as it reached the ferroceramic. Clay burning and cracking as it should, absorbing the blast and taking that melt along with it. But had no hope against such militarized ordinance. The scorched plate scoured away in kind. What gel layer there even was left beyond it going next, boiling under the explosive force and instant heat. So all that was left was…

Fractions of seconds smashed over Seth's head, a cloud of fire and smoke consuming the whole blasted road. Dashing all to cover and cower as stars of shrapnel rained bright. As concussive force battered all to the deck. Buster, the commander, the soldiers on the line, all left holding their lives and their breath. As the shot rang echo and eardrum for all they were worth. As the shadow clouded beneath that impact bent in almighty recoil. Metal body less totaled, inching over in justice for what it took from them, following what was left of what had been imparted upon it in slowed material fashion.

Every eye locked in anxious terror, ears ringing the scene to silent need to see, hope burgeoning that this nightmare was over. That there was an end to be had.

But that hope died.

As the right foot racked to stop this deserved fall, scathing talons hard into the indistinguishable roadway. The smoke drifted, dissipated, and a vision of the damage flashed before the horror realized. Armor holed wide, a jagged glittering hole over the eye, layer after layer burned away and blackened. But the skin under it… was beyond definition.

Char and burn matched between surviving metal and debatable flesh. The only signifier it was even there in that void was the glowing cracks that crossed the hole. Cracks that spread a little too far. But in that barely resolved moment of vision true terror was realized…

As that eye reopened.

It burned… Everything burned! Fire and melt seeped between suit and skin, broiling flesh and igniting bone. He couldn't breathe, burn charring down his throat. He couldn't move, muscle filled with wanton shrapnel and cooked to charcoal. Nerves tried to die quickly to spare him this, concussion near total and splintering what it could to stop this. To stymy this suffering, to drop him away in shock, to end him in greymatter death. But…

He could still feel everything!

This snapping, popping, accentuated hell. Bones turned to kindling across every path. Skin cracking with every jerk and wince. Nerves staying their places and making him feel this burn! He struggled to grab at power, at anything to end this. He had to heal, he had to stop, he had to end this agony!

But he couldn't.

It wouldn't let him!

The pain fed this thing, this new abyss what it wanted! His fury, his resentment, his malice, his wrath! Everything it cause it gorged upon, glutted itself like never before. He hated them, wanted them to burn as he was, wanted nothing but to tear them apart down to the very essence of who they were!

And so that eye roared to brilliance like before, a red star burning through the lingering cordite and smoking flesh pouring from every edge of the suit. It turned his body, denied him everything, cracked what had melted together to face their new target regretting this life. It hunched off the turn, his body racked unimaginable and suffocating insurmountable. But that didn't matter.

Nothing matters!!!

Power was drawn, strength pulled completely away. The armor began to repair the damage, invisible threads reeling blasted remnants from the air and fusing them into their rightful place, their rightful shape. Flesh returning but the pain was baked in too deep to cut out. Burning eternal like so many before.

The defensive line watched in horror as all the damage they ever managed to do was disappearing before their eyes. Before that helmet snapping open. Jagged edges coming apart in its abyss drooling maw. Electricity arced, that oozing red glow emanating from an insatiable empty void, a charging whir echoing from all sides so none could escape it! The burn on the eye flaring as the last of the armor puzzle pieced back in place, closed slit amplifying its luminance for all to know this fear!

To all suffer the despair they deserved!!!

The soldiers couldn't move, they knew this was the end but they couldn't run, couldn't will themselves flee. All they could do was watch as death came about-

*CCCCRREEEEEEEEENnnnnnnnnn*

For Seth.

The sound of metal rend, a sharp spreading of a new pain, a sudden involuntary shift up, and the utter dissipation of that monstrous whir.

Replaced entirely by the thrum of oscillating metal.

Buster had seen her chance, Seth's wrath consuming the suit's focus and leaving them vulnerable. She'd dashed into the smoke and dust that clouded the battlefield and came about on him, blade set to skewer into his back and hopefully disrupt his charge up. She'd launched herself with no time for regard, stabbing with all the strength she had. But where armor had slowed and stymied all previous, it now presented no resistance.

That vibrating blade slicing and pushing aside threads spread too thin and waning away, the abyss taking everything it could to fuel its revenge. Layer after layer sliced open as the blade carved through with its constant frequency. Atoms made to make way. Metal split with little resistance, what ceramic remained turned to dust, gel blasted away in the vibratory cacophony. Then the blade tasted flesh… and kept going. Through bone and artery, pipe and stomach, finally coming out the other end of his sternum. Slicing through the other side and out, only grinding to a halt when nearly half the blade was impaled through.

As Seth was finally returned to this world in horrid full.

Like a popped balloon releasing the air it once held, the abyss had relinquished its hold on its dying host. Seth was free of its obfuscation, its overriding control, its swallowing darkness blotting everything. The fractured pieces and degloved subconscious allowed to reform and return. But what he'd came back to was nothing but a feast of that anguish.

The burning flesh, the totaled strength, the stinging intrusion of cold thrumming steel. The shallow gasp, the crushing weight, and a gulf of time gone wholesale. His mind was freed but held no memory. Nothing past flashes and smoke and blinding need to crack Para's skull open. Nothing of what had happened, of what he'd fallen to. Of what he'd done. All he could feel, all he could know, was the approach of death yet again.

Blood came up every time he tried to breathe, each unconscious action a pang across his entire chest, as the gravity of this intrusion made itself abhorrently clear. His heart beat in desperate fashion, but every cycle tore it against the blade that bifurcated it. Blood and acid pooled and pressed down on his diaphragm, a spreading cold inching with every hollowed beat, and a sickening bottomless pit fully realizing hell.

He tried to focus, to look down at his wound. The helmet shut its maw and fused, but before he could look down at the boiling stain refused by that blades vibrating surface, his balance gave out. His legs stumbled him forward, and a tenuous grip from behind finally releasing.

Whoever had still been holding this blade to its last left go, the oscillating hum ceasing as their grip fell away, as Seth's knees gave out. As all the weight he carried aloft now came crashing down to the devastated asphalt below. The lower layers cracked and a wave of dust kicked up. He tried to lift his hand to the blade, a last grasp at saving himself. But it was stuck fast, the stopped oscillation fusing it to his suit and sealing it tight.

His vision grew dark at the edges. Not that subsuming void come to reclaim him, but by an emptying, blood draining away from where it was needed. His lungs collapsing under their own weight, his breath simply emptying into his chest and burbling out his wounds. More of his body fell numb with every passing second, fell cold and empty and passed the point of no return. But his vision filled this awaiting void regardless. Against his will and against all that may.

His life flowing in reverse like an out of control slide show. The last vestiges of his mind desperate to survive as the air turned useless and nerves starved. He saw nothing, he saw fights, he saw hope dashed, he saw his mom gone. He saw those few friends fly by, his struggles to be seen better disappear. He saw his career come and go, his life at the orphanage wane to nothing. He followed his steps back through the hell of the crisis, past all the horrors he'd experienced and all that he laid as his promise. He saw his family disappear in the blink of an eye again.

But then it… kept going. Into what he only knew fragments of.

His parents teaching him about other cultures with those stupid tacky calendars covered in heroes he liked. His birthdays eating cinnamon waffles his dad made different each time so he'd remember each one. His parents trying their hardest to teach him things he seemed to forget almost immediately. He saw his old friends, his old neighbors giving him candy and presents just so he'd remember their names. He saw their frustrations and misgivings at the broken kid before them. He saw himself wake up with barely any understanding of what happened the previous day, but a fresh imagination of what his emotions held tight to. He saw his parents dread what would become of their son, but do their damnedest to lift him up and help him remember at least something.

He saw it all like he'd always had those memories, but never realized they were there. Never realized how bad it had been for him.

And yet… still they passed and faded as his vision blackened further.

As his thoughts and regrets died away, as his feelings dimmed down to not even numb. His strength finally falling away completely, desperate hand falling limp as he fell to the ground. The sword angling his fall to the side, dropping him to the asphalt black dust below. A last gasp of his consciousness driving him to reach out, toward home.

Toward… toward the rest that it wanted. But that gasp realizing he had it already, he had his rest right here. Even if it was the cold void he had struggled against. It was quiet, peaceful. At long last it had what it wanted, for this day to end and to just disappear.

The suit fell limp all at once, a burst of dust and force signaling the release of all the energy Seth had left in him. A pitiful kick up, but a message clear. The soldiers and Buster all watching on too hesitant to check and make sure it was over. But this had to be it, this was the end.

Seth was dead…

To the world.

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