The ground was chaos—cracked stone, glowing ash, and ruptured metal from Akron's righteous impact—but above it all, Aquila and Neil stood firm, their mecha forms gleaming in the stormlight, staring down the blur that was Hermes, one of Intra's most elusive monsters.

Aquila's mecha was lean and aerodynamic, midnight-blue plating lined with bronze feathers across her shoulders, chest, and lower back. Her arms were wrapped in adaptive fiberweave, and from her back sprouted two massive wings—the ones of the Peregrine Falcon. Sharp, narrow, and thrumming with kinetic energy, they shimmered with directional control arrays, ready to push her beyond the speed of sound in a straight line. Her visor glowed orange, scanning every twitch Hermes made.

Neil stood beside her, in contrast a heavier frame, his suit designed to stabilize and deploy. The chrome-blue plating on his arms and legs pulsed with circulating coolant, and cylindrical tanks on his back hissed with mist. From these tanks, thin silver tubing ran along his arms, ending in conduits at his palms, where gaseous orbs of shimmering blue vapor floated like balloons tethered by will. His mecha suit was covered in vapor-reactive sigils, glowing faintly like veins.

Hermes only smirked.

The man was already in motion before the dirt had finished falling from the last explosion. His silver suit left a trail of light, and his biocore—a solid, blinding seven-star signal—radiated like a storm held together by will. There were no weapons. His body was the weapon. And the moment the tension snapped, he vanished.

CRACK—

Aquila barely dodged the high-speed swipe that would've torn her in half. A shimmer of air and light, that was all Hermes left behind. A sonic boom followed a half-second later.

"He's fast," Neil muttered, forming a dozen small gas bubbles, floating like mines. "Even my sensors are delayed."

"Don't rely on sensors." Aquila's falcon wings spread fully. "Rely on instinct."

BOOM— Hermes reappeared behind Neil, foot flying for the back of his head. But Neil dropped, sending a blast of vapor upward as the kick passed through a misty afterimage.

The gas bubble exploded.

Hermes hissed in annoyance, landing with a spin.

"You're not bad," he said, brushing a glowing scratch on his shoulder. "But you're still only Rank Five."

"We only need one opening," Aquila said—and then she vanished.

A sudden burst of air pressure signaled her falcon

—falcon dash.

Aquila reappeared mid-air, spiraling downward like a predatory divebomb, her wings compressed into a narrow arc, shedding bronze feathers of hard-light that screeched through the air like daggers. She twisted mid-spin, her right foot glowing with kinetic transfer, amplifying momentum into her mecha frame.

Hermes barely dodged—but even "barely" meant getting clipped.

CRACK! Her foot scraped along his side, sending him tumbling across the fractured battlefield, crashing through stone and mist.

But Hermes didn't slow. With a blur of silver light and a sharp burst of kinetic aftershock, he ricocheted off a rock wall, bending his trajectory like a bullet mid-flight. "You're clever," he muttered, already reforming his path toward Aquila, "but this isn't a fight you can win."

He appeared in front of her in an instant—two punches, three jabs, one knee—all launched in less than a second.

Aquila parried the first two with the broad flat of her wing, shifting feathers to block, but Hermes' knee drove into her abdomen, sending her flying backwards into a jagged pillar.

Neil caught her mid-flight, catching her with a blast of compressed vapor that turned to suction mist, slowing her descent.

"I've got a new idea," Neil muttered, sweat dripping down his forehead. He focused, breathing slow. His arms extended wide, and the vapor surrounding them expanded like a balloon.

"Cover me," he said.

Aquila didn't hesitate.

She shot forward again, this time using the Eagle Wings—broad, strong, and perfect for mid-air pivots and shielding. Her strikes now had follow-through: wide sweeps, tailwind bursts, redirecting Hermes into Neil's expanding trap.

Hermes zig-zagged between their attacks—almost untouchable. But he noticed it too late.

He was inside Neil's compressed field of micro-bubbles—dozens of floating orbs, now charging with volatile polarity. Each one reacted to motion.

Hermes darted left.

Boom.

Right.

Boom.

Up.

BOOM.

Three detonations in rapid succession slowed him for half a second—and in that instant, Aquila's body blurred, now clad in Raven Wings—a stealth model built for piercing.

She stabbed forward like a bolt of darkness.

SLASH.

Blood splattered.

Hermes grunted, twisting to lessen the blow—but he was bleeding, real now, slowed now.

Neil grinned from the distance, more bubbles already forming. "One opening, remember?"

Aquila flared her wings.

"Let's clip the courier."

Hermes' bleeding shoulder sizzled—the blood evaporating before it could stain his suit. He stood still for a heartbeat, exhaling deeply. His feet vibrated against the cracked stone. A high-pitched hum built in the air, an unnatural frequency that caused even Neil's gas bubbles to pulse erratically.

"Enough of this," Hermes whispered. His voice echoed twice—like it was already moving.

His biocore pulsed violently.

A brilliant white ring of light erupted from beneath him, spiraling out in a perfect dome, swallowing Aquila, Neil, and half the broken battlefield.

Then—everything inside the dome froze for an instant.

No, not frozen—rearranged.

Aquila blinked and found herself suddenly on one knee, wings flickering as if her body had been moved without her consent. Neil's gas field had collapsed, the microbubbles shattered, and he stood thirty meters from where he had just been, coughing violently.

Hermes stood in the center, cloaked in blinding motion, his form splitting into streaks, eight afterimages moving in circular patterns around them.

"This is the Zone," he said. "Seven-Star protocol. Speed Absolute."

He moved—and Aquila's cheek split open.

She hadn't seen him.

He moved again—and Neil's leg buckled as a pulse strike hit behind his knee.

Every movement Hermes made carried the force of supersonic impact, and the sound followed seconds later—sonic booms blooming like thunderclaps across the dome.

"Can't dodge," Neil said through gritted teeth.

"Can't read him," Aquila murmured, scanning in every direction. Even her Hawk Eyes couldn't lock him down.

They were prey.

Hermes blurred into a feint, then crashed a blow into Neil's back, sending him into a wall of cracked stone.

Aquila leapt to intercept—but Hermes was already behind her.

His palm hovered by her neck.

"This fight's over," he said—and pushed forward.

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