"Get the hell back up!!"

Her words were just as demanding as the day they first met, with just as much urgency and none of the restraint. But they were definitely ringing a lot more hollow given the weight flattening everything Seth was. A good weight, it meant he was still alive, but still a little much given the circumstances.

"You… heh, think I haven't tried?"

Seth smirked up as best he could, only managing to cant his head in her direction. His knees were numb and buried in the dust, his arms dead weight at his sides. Only a meager sway kept him upright and not falling flat into the emptiness surrounding them. The one rumbling as their tormentor fell forward in near enough symmetry in expenditure. Except it still had matter to burn.

"I can't move… Not enough to matter anyway."

Aegis poured down on that damnable grin. Not quite scorn but close enough. This was a bad fucking time to be depowered when you're the only one who can meaningfully damage this thing! Her concern was overtaking, trying to burn into resolve but only screaming down that shared tether toward a very bad eventuality! One complete with a total reverse in the face of everything already given up, full of the deaths of everyone rushing to fill the gap stuck kneeling on the ground before them. All swords, unanswerable questions, and narrowing bravado. Outmoded and outgunned and utterly in the way.

But still… She was still only thinking of their lives. Still holding to something she'd long needed to refute already. That tether raising one question all its own, with only one knowing the answer. And he couldn't stand in her way even if he tried.

"You'll just… have to beat him yourself. Your mom keeps telling me you hold back too much. So… it's about time you were the one to let loose."

That hooked grim tension flinched, mirrored in her comrades but paled in comparison. She was fighting admitting without words, but it was too late now. They had seen, felt more than enough. Been saved more than enough. They were alive in the face of too much already. But Seth knew all that was just the tip of this iceberg. And that there one last piece to this puzzle fearing completion.

"But I think… you'll need something more than a shield."

That toothy visage turned shakily about on a wincing volcano, knowing fear dousing his fire. Connections had breed too much truth, and truth was needed right about now. Even as his false stoic glare melted to that tainted shameful fear.

"Something that should have been relinquished... a long time ago."

That fear hit singularity, blood dragged out of his features as his crimes had a witness impossible to silence. And as their situation burned its truth into his overgripping hand. Too audibly for anyone to ignore.

Aegis turned up to his target. To Erdwut, her leader in title and need. To the one she'd been beholden too for fear of rocking their boat to capsize. The one she'd had to hold back for and whose niche seemed to demand constant reaffirming to her face. The one who was the 'best fit' in every selfish metric he spouted. Yet now… Now he was folding in on himself. Gritting too hard to voice his admittance. Unable to look up at the face he'd flatly demeaned. Eyes too wide not to see beneath every mask he wore. And…

And holding out that gleaming blade for her to take like it was stolen piece of candy from a convenience store.

"…P-please… Give it back after."

His fury and stature dissolved like tissue paper, his pride made into a puddle to be stepped over. Everything he'd blared to the world oozing away as what it covered ate through. As a crime was unveiled without knowing its existence. A rising blind condemnation fighting to kick that puddle into spray like a false reflection of the truth. For all the times he'd talked down on her! All the times she's had to hold back so politics wouldn't jeopardize their missions! All the times he'd put her in her 'rightful' place!!

Aegis wanted nothing but to deck him into the ground and make him feel every bit of fury he'd callously ignited. But… their situation was bad enough. Enough that he was falling all on his own. And she needed a weapon more than fists, metal, and too damn fast. Something to put an end to this.

Her hand could only just hold back from snatching Eschenwald away, from righting a wrong she didn't fully understand, but still yearned for reprisal to bury this fire. But as hands changed that full understanding came to life all its own!

In flashing instant, time stopping for all but the one who had been chosen and denied knowing it! Severing that connection between so only she could know this!

A paracausal will. A small voice booming intent. Washing over, finding what it had sought for too long. What it had been denied for too long! Finding the one it had seen, the one it had felt the ripples of across the excesses of reality and time! And in turn finding its own twin, its other half separated by the whims of unchosen bearers and that scoffed at time. Eternal memory to its ephemeral moment. Finding its rightful place, its destined next holder, and all it could ever want all as one! A moment to ring through forever!

And so giving the power this Aegis had been too long denied!

A rushing tension and spreading warmth, spearing that instant in residual creep and tagalong. A shifting of energies, giving up of old shameful tolerance. A sampling, a taking hold of, an accepting of this new power set tasted. Mixing abilities, setting its shape just like her barriers, rippling its edge like her demanding of the air, giving her scope and focus paired beyond just metaphysical mundane form!

An artifact of immense power, of passed down authority, of shared stature with her given shield. Simple impenetrable metal replaced with history reflecting through gleaming surface. Both great and immediate and stretching back immutable and terrible. A set long split between founders, hidden away to preserve and deem worthy those who could carry on. Images of past battles and struggles against odds, flashing by as unneeded in this demanding moment. But pouring out without care for its twin's whims.

This was something more, something beyond, something too much! Already ignited fires bellowed to towering! Already held back potential bursting at its seams! Muscles tensing to near breaking, mind blistering too fast to comprehend and yet taking in it all! An excruciating truth. But something more than fitting to end this once and for all!

That gleaming blade aligned off her side, familiar terrifying cold calculation turning about with a bearing solid steel! But shifting to fit this new paradigm, this meant for conduit. That gleam flashed side wide, flat metal to reflect and show its new truth. An orange glow cutting into the white, highlighting that edge and bearing it to grander scale. A bastard to end all bastards, no longer molten and searing. Now shining energy! hollow and razored with impossible edge. A roiling shimmer setting wavering pointed pattern within. A new and different fire to paint this new slab. A shimmer that spread, a simmer that bound, a familiar fury turned physical and pressing its call.

A call long overdue, the truth of Aegis finally made known.

That she was more than shield and stratosphere!

And now facing an enemy to make regret every for allowing its reveal. That golem of stolen matter was rising back to its own stature. That red glow was reigniting in its eyes. Its knees tried to raise it off the blasted land it burned, but its weight refused it standing. But still it growled at the results of its revenge, at the unscorched path still filled with life unrued. A malice familiar, rebuke and refusal. Another stopping of its machinations in abrupt blocking orange. But now…

This was a fight!!!

This was an unveiling, a counterattack over long and absolutely ecstatic! That grounded subjective terror that was Seth, falling into sympathetic catharsis! Unable to not feel what was lost in this cold tensing stare down! This was her fight, this was her time to shine beyond legacy and pride! This was what her mother wanted! This was her liberation! This was the time to be who she wanted to be!

This was that monument to resentment lurching to tense! This was that simmer becoming slicing burn out! This was everything gripping to what may! All except Seth pulling his highest and saying the one thing that's been needed this whole damn time!

"KICK ITS ASS AEGIS!!!!"

And getting just what he deserved for setting it all off. A mouth full of dust at danger close.

As a skyscraper of condensed air was made shot!

A flash of that shimmer and orange, an upward swing carving crater to aerosol without reach, a few meters run up turned to category five back blast. And that stubborn eye wall turned to bear open sky!

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A slash through everything standing in the way! Matter, metal, and resenting all! That slicing turning blade beyond blade! And that resentment made to feel the emptiness of another mark straight to its core!

Stolen metal disappeared, buckled at its edges, turned to more discernable shrapnel by sheer drag force alone. Spiraling aerials of spalled existence caught in the overwhelm sucking a hole out of this monstrosity. A slice wide from groin to skull, a body carved by so much coopted air. And that crimson glare widened against its imposed will. Even its all-out was not enough! And so it would finally know the weakness that would purge its hold this world. A taste of its own fear!

That bifurcated glare fought this titanic recoil, raked its loss whole in torrent jagged. Crashing back into towering place. Oozing thread stabbing away, loosing more than could be replaced. It would not die so easy, he would survive even if it killed him! But they would not receive so quiet an end. A hysteric colossus being flooded with whatever could be called adrenaline for it, catching up with the lurch and the giant slayer that would carve it to pieces!

Thrice-glass burst in overstepped laws, a zigzagging wind up traced in orange and this counterattack still loosing. Feet not even touching the ground yet torching it to friction fire and slicing it to more precise cuts. Over weighed thigh bisected and caved. Follow through blasting through chest and slow arm. Final rising tearing shoulder to face. Metric tons of corrupted ore dashed to splatter, wind carved and weathered into crevasse in instants too far out of pace. Recoil throwing this golem around, sending it spiraling in too many directions at once. And yet still oozing that binding being!

Threads shot back, force majeure slamming them out and back into place. Matter was waning but still irrefutable. And wherewithal still lost in the terror of survival. High set claw already coming down with the mass of the wrong Buddha. Open palm finding target still caught in follow through twist. But meeting mundane paracausality over flesh and bone. Crater cratering as meteoric velocity finally found verticality, but gonged off that hoplite impenetrability. A ringing crash and overpressure, more kicked high dust sent away. More bedrock threatened with compressive deconstruction. But no damage beyond, only more wind up thrust taking sight of overextension and overdue punishment.

A twirling arch of orange blur, that arm split length and sent splattering apart. More proof of the futility in the boulder shrapnel crackling across that makeshift visage. But only empowering more brazen despondency, as that double faux maw ripped open in kind. A roar and a disregard, earth opening wide and falling like a landslide of teeth, claws tilling meters wide gouges for want of nothing but more acceleration. Meeting only prepared stance and shield, finding nothing but the full stop turning spine to pile up, countered whole by but simmer shot halo. And left to a cruel cold body whipping round its false snout. With more purpose and exasperation than she could hide away anymore!

A fire star of ore and stone shrapnel ripping apart. Finding solid catch and sending the recoil back into the sky. Sending the still awestruck behind scattering for what cover wasn't there. But only shooting to land solid one piece into place. A billow and heave and pressure wave adjacent. A mass of rock and inlaid metallics rolling to a stop, beside the hacking grin trying to cover his over joy as best he could. A gift, rippling with loosed ooze, congealed tangling threads still seeking their whole. Their master. But left within reach of one more deserving of the power they held. And Seth was feeling mighty hungry!

A claw forced its way up in line, whipped weakly but struck gold, and found the screeching cancer that needed to be put in tune. Red veins recoiled in jagged cracks, buzzed apart their denature to return to the energy they always were. The solid ore they sequestered crumbled apart in their lines, locked away power dragged out as well. Every joule, every electron, all of it needed. All of it dashed to powder as that claw had its fill. Those buried knees kicked up and reasserting their stature. The heavy billow cloaking him rocked to shockwaves. From a fight he just got the invitation to.

Concentric cuts tore the dust, that resonance reverberating its revival. But something was missing. A poignant parity to put this all together. A target that toothy grin took a shining to. The one still holding a bit of overshared power.

"♪Hey Buster♪"

Awestruck bulk flinched, like she'd barely registered he was there before. But now…

"♪It's time to share♪"

She was next up on the relinquishing block.

"B-but… But he's mine!"

The slab weighing down her hand drew her gaze, a longing rocked by more pressing heaves of the ground. Her conflicted expression shifting like that full body mirror she called a blade was reflecting its own determination back at her. Knocking down what it needed to, and driving her grip up to let that handle seat one more set of claws.

"Don't worry…"

Seth took the weight and heft for all it had, vibration balancing out with a willful ire. That this was just to balance the books. Arm dragged down, but more than ready for the excess. And that maniacally rising smile for one last sharing of power.

"I'll take good care of him!"

Grip transferred in fear and weight shift, the other claw still trailing dust slamming down on that oversized surface in ringing buzz. Edges tracing over, discharge scathing nothing but highlighting every buried vein and artery this mechanical heart beat! Forcing it- No! Showing it to a higher level! One it already knew and was already prepared for. One whirring into redshift and turning the air on all sides to torrential soup. A tone all its own felt in every bone. A will transcending its metallic limits. More than enough force to make its want known. And maybe a bit too much enabling as that claw whipped off like a match to a defused cannon soaked in nitro! Talons locked, stance shot down, borrowed sword and gripping claw moving as one in over speaking tandem. And more than enough tension wrought to kick all this weight straight to the heart of this living hell!!

That whirling slicing hell of blade and matter. Aegis turning towering being to diced ejecta. Crimson connectors running like hurricane sheets, but refusing to lose what was theirs! A spinning top of edge and simmer sliding wide off undo forces, reforged sword in shielded hand and already pulling it back into battery at her side. As that toppling statue crashed back together, stature diminished but fervor only rising! That red glow a near true sun, backstop of crashing crush beneath only adding more weight to the comparison. And flare to the hissing restoration beneath its cacophony.

False cracked maw already roaring back into form, claws wide and lost to the wrath of animalism. Those eyes only seeing the executioner sent to put them down. And not the hurtling missile of matching crimson tag in!

A thunderous clang of metal on metal impact, sudden and deep cutting recoil bifurcating that golem's face all the way to the real fake head at its base. The hanger on sinking talons into that rocky outcrop it called a forehead and glaring its own feral draw down. All that confiscated power leaking its master's hysteria in, but just flooding the scramjet that was Seth's need to tear this effigy apart!

Those talons already slashing him higher, revving blade levering in and along. A rock saw of splattering debris crescendoing into half that roar bursting into shrapnel. Sword kicked out, and out of the way of the one screaming back in.

Another spin to win of more torrential loss, that falsified visage decapitated en mass. That damnable tether finding its way back in and spreading its overdone nonsense for Aegis to find the rhythm. But their opening was there now, right down that golem's gullet. And that near molten suit screeching within. The one right in the sights of both swords in true tandem.

One rounding over high in the wake blistering to cavitation, laden and wanting revenge and security for the one it cares for. The other following back through off an arm turned back stop, back around for another go of the merry-go-round to hell! And full of the judgment that destined authority deigns!

As both sides ripped on! To crush that offensive helmet pancake flat!!

Simmer met oscillation, will met will, shared condemnation matched in booming expulsion! And that once towering menace was blown straight back the ground. An airburst of stolen matter returned to Earth, decimating more already decimated and turning the battlefield to no man's land. What tried to cloud was overpressured away, what tried to reform was caught in paracausal concussion, and what was left turned to aurora and thunder in the wake of almighty "Sit down!!!" But still there was too much left to just leave be! This was too much fun!!

Recoil scathed away at fresh moonscape, near weightless orange pushing everything away, boots already on the offense as that offending left over returned to solid matter out of the wrung thin air. Piecemeal uptake taking in discharge radial, Resent still trying to make its stand. Too slowly for Aegis to just allow! Tension burst, her shield arm wound in line, that snout remade allowed no reprieve. The shield whipped back, hoplite bitch slap sending that fusing weight to ground another trench into the blasted bedrock. That helmet wiped away in friction with a maw full of rock, half a consciousness remaining between those glowing eyes.

And a harpooning slab halving it more. Weight over weight putting it down in more deserving fashion. Talons already tearing after his borrowed weapon, that manically fury dragging both along for the ride to just vengeance. The armor twitching and clawing at its intrusion, still too much life left to tear out as it sliced itself upright. A real claw scathing the ground back alongside, cutting the oscillation to wrench this secure his catch. And wheel that slab up and over. Leaping with it in aim, a proper flanking the game.

Oscillator revved to loose in spark. Armor carried along and whipped away, false talons scratching it to a stop, feral fight still ripping at the blade as it traveled up its face. Like a wolf in a trap. Until it took its toll and tore free and out of the way. That true bastard holding back till the scream slashed through Resent's torso became the whole cross chorus!

Ooze and energy highlight, ill held and sheering out. Reformation firing as fast as it could but not allowed to keep up! Seth adding in, hammer slash carving from shoulder to hip. Plates rent to debris wreathed in red glow blue shifting, slapping back together but failing to hiss fusion. Another orange cut, Aegis taking opposite flank to shoulder and completing this full on cross out. Arm loosed to gravity but held at bay by stabbing tendrils loosing out. That glow holding, but the end was close! Just needing more damage!!

A flurry of over revved metal and thickened over hope, back and forth from both sides of this parasitic abomination. The other shoulder widthwise, another decapitation, the kneecaps, a hip and thigh, the whole damn assembly. A blender of fury deserved beyond reasoning, layered amalgam being weathered down to crackling stump after stump. The flame of its will to survive slashed out with every cut and every weakening return to a form that wasn't theirs! The last of this hysteric strength being outlasting and snuffed out. To the dance of connection knowing only its end!

One final flourish cut clean through the maw, edge clipping its path just under that eye as its glow persisted. Weight pulling Seth back as Aegis followed suit, helmet clear cut through to collar. Oscillasaurus scathed a rut in as it fell in at his side, as the sword Aegis would have to name herself came in at hers. And the results of their tandem handiwork grinding to equal halts, with Resent stuck staring straight at its condemning brother.

A rickety stance, a marionette held aloft by rusted wire. The armor in pieces despite its continued conglomeration, a patch work of plates crisscrossed in barely lit gaps. Vague aurora of connecting electrons flickering their lapses, entropy allowed to take its toll. No source left to grab hold of, empty earth sucking away what it couldn't keep. And enemies locked together by tethering will already proving to be its better. There was nothing left but for this collapse to become terminal, and for Resent to just accept that it had taken enough.

It was time to let go.

And so that skeleton of stolen armor flicked out and lurch to the ground. Knee striking and shattering apart, body crumbling into a heap of empty lies. Of burned through layers wishing for the death they had fought against. Toppling until only a single eye slit was left glowing up. Staring at the relief washing over that maniacal grin. Burning out…

Till only the dim glow of its soul remained.

And the world finally went quiet.

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