Silence.

  Emptiness.

  Calm…

  Seth felt… calm.

  Calmer than he’d ever felt before.

  Relaxed.

  Emptied of… everything.

  Lighter than ever.

  Like… everything burdening him was so…

  So very far away.

  Distant.

  But…

  But not gone.

  Just… detached.

  Moved.

  His strain, his anxiety, his fear.

  He could still feel their pulse and pang.

  But they were slow.

  Hollow.

  Like they didn’t matter.

  Strangely though, he couldn’t feel the wall he was sitting against. Nor the sand beneath him. Or even the helmet weighing down on his head.

  His eyes fluttered open like he’d been asleep, but it was like they never did. He was surrounded by darkness. Not oppressive consuming darkness, just…

  Emptiness.

  He looked down to check himself, to put some far off relief to the pang, but only increased his confusion. His hands were almost see through, an intricate pattern of points of light in the shape of his hands. And his arms. And everything right down to the clothes he was wearing. It all still felt like his, moved like his, but his body was… energy?

  ‘Is this what dreaming is like? Kinda hoped it would be more than this.’

  A barren expanse of nothing, waiting maybe for him to fill it? But no. His thought bred no bright shining imagination, only…

  A sudden stopping of the darkness being so dark. A distant flash illuminating it. Casting shadows like storms on a night’s horizon. Crossing expanses in set lines, flashed and spread from splaying termini. Traveled up and over and down through this encompassing emptiness. And reminded him of…

  ‘Am I in my own head?’

  Synaptic lines lit up as distant nerve clusters transmitted code across innumerable points, flashed and dimmed into the distance. But where he was, where he stood, it remained dark. Distant. Separated from the tumultuous nature of introspection fueled recursion.

  Still he felt around, felt for those nerves signals ripple his… senses? He had senses here? Steadily those infinitesimal signals felt more like over charged powerlines. Like so much energy he’d utilized before. Yet where he stood…? Floated? It was still like he was staring at nothing. Like some dark expanse between. But… That nothing seemed to pull at him.

  And became clearer.

  He stopped feeling out, felt a familiar hand on his focus but preempted it. Looked deeper. Felt deeper. Felt the confluence and density. Felt the draw so small yet so insurmountable. A point of energy condensed. Convex upon reality. Upon the cell he was over. Till beyond its edges his focus fell. Till down into it he fell. As a multitude of points lensed into this pocket of space. A few too many.

  ‘Okay way many points… Too many! JezAghh!!’

  He was blinded as his own focus, his own perception of reality shifted to where all the light, all this energy was condensed and congregated. Gravitationally brought together just short of singularity. He rubbed his eyes. Or at least these facsimiles. He wasn’t blind, he was just slow to focus on this different scale. Senses overwhelmed by what was far denser than he was prepared for. Then he’d found himself as.

  Slowly the formless light gained resolution. Dimmed to clearer, more familiar shapes. And textures?

  Buildings… filling out like he’d never seen before. Like stocky huts made of stone and metal. Or maybe energy mimicking such. They rose high like apartments, very much not like huts though. As row after row of them towered and squatted into the distance before him.

  He felt a road beneath his feet as he took a step to steady the vertigo. It was soft and smooth, but also stone. Like river rocks flattened out and cobbled together. And it was cold. He felt a… breeze?

  ‘Wait, how is there wind here?’

  It was chilly, heavy. He couldn’t help shiver even if it was just simulated.

  ‘This… this is a simulation right?’

  But then he saw them. The densest groups of lights resolving into bodies more individual. Smaller. People. But… but not human. Those points of energy becoming forms that stood over and under, that gathered tighter and tighter till features could not be ignored. Scales that desperately mimicked hues and patterns. Clawed hands keeping low and tight with apprehension. Taloned feet gripping the same road he stood upon. Mildly squared snouts bearing toothy grins and emotion aplenty. Reptilian beings just like the laceroids. But… not…

  Their bodies were smaller, not overblown and muscled near to bursting. They varied in height and stature, posture and poise. But their eyes, the emotion they gave in clear cut knowing. Their eyes didn’t show the desperation, the fear, the hunger that Seth couldn’t seem to escape. Instead all they had was recognition, caution, joyous relief. Like they’d all been waiting for him. And… and yet all he could feel, all that he could really feel was…

  ‘Heh. This is what you guys look like? Not going to lie, I thought you’d all be taller.’

  A collective mix of slightedness and deflated auspiciousness speared through those gathered to greet him. All together feeling the whiplash of years turned to facetious candor. One rather tall, gold and regally poised, had his face in his hand. But under it, he began to laugh. As he wiped away the hand the rest of the crowd began to chuckle. Seth felt another at his back, but knew who it was well before a transparent scaly arm wrapped around his head. Like a proud older brother showing the only way he knew how.

  “And they thought that I was going to spoil the moment!”

  Threat, somewhat smaller than the others, was beaming a green hued smile and chuckling with the rest them, the rest of the Garkah that had been living in his head unseen for so long. No longer. Now all of them were gathering around him like a village greeting a returning hero. Threat let go as the crowd neared, let them all great him as they had long wish to. The young and older only in spirit. The hardened and soft by simple matter of trade. The analytical and the noble and the just happy to be here. All surrounded and smiled and beamed out what auspiciousness allowed. As Speaker cleared his chuckle yet couldn’t stop from grinning down. From stepping close and putting a clawed hand over Seth’s shoulder. And relaying all that collective pride he was feeling as that love became almost physical.

  “It is great to finally meet you face to face. It has been too long coming?”

  Seth smirked in turn as he felt this welcome wash over, Speaker was probably overdoing his role a little but it wasn’t something anyone would complain about. It was still a little overwhelming being this close to everyone he only ever knew through vague emotions and voices in his head.

  ‘Heheh. If you had told me I could do something like this, I would have visited sooner.’

  Speaker put his other hand on Seth’s other shoulder and leaned down toward him. Expression changed from etiquette suppressed joy to noble judgment.

  “Well we did not exactly have a body for you to use here till now. Would you rather have floated about as an amorphous consciousness getting stuck in everything you touch or as a rushed and hollow facsimile that would have driven you insane?”

  Seth turned only slightly down to fearful.

  ‘N-no no, this is fine.’

  Speaker patted his thanks for the corrected demeanor, straightening back up and regaining the poise he had before. But retaining that prideful joy that could not be swayed away.

  “Still. I am glad you can finally see us. Finally meet us as we are. Finally see what we have built.”

  Speaker waved his hand out at the city around them. Buildings of pure energy spreading out from a central point, rising up over each other like they all vied for attention. Seth could feel the rest of the Garkah spread out over it. And in turn they felt him. He felt their aspirations, their fears, their loves. He felt their works, great leaps in their fields thanks to this… incorporeal stature.

  Architects building their designs with sheer thought and testing them without consequence. Doctors testing formulations and procedures with life-like simulation. Scientists studying aspects of physics Seth couldn’t even fathom, though that wasn’t something new. Though he was pretty sure that one of them was working some kind of matter teleportation method, and another was trying to reevaluate the Ark’s usefulness. But the jumble of welcomes and toothy grins that met his addition to this collective pressed him about.

  As in turn he felt them all look to him. Felt a people that prospered despite their situation, despite the events that lead them here, all see him as one of them. As someone who was always a part of them. But something else came with it, an apprehension not born of social pressure. A fear burgeon for attention. As all their focus, all those faces, all these eyes friendly and pleading, turned to the center of this city. As Speaker’s hand release his shoulder, so the immediate could show their own more mundane language. As the crowd followed suit to draw him to that which they feared.

  “This place… Our Tesh III. We rebuilt it with our own minds, with our own thoughts. Worked tirelessly to remake what we once had in the Ark, what was our Tesh II. But it all had a starting point. A place it all came from.”

  Seth couldn’t help but follow everyone’s focus, be swept up in the collective toward that center.

  “We were not simply transplanted into your brain. It could never have held us in the beginning. Not enough energy to go around. Not enough density to solidify our forms. So we were…”

  Threat stepped back up to Seth’s side, a calming face to catch him from spiraling in the current, with a clawed translucent finger pointed at his head.

  “The Ark shot a piece of its core into your head.”

  Speaker growled slightly at Threat’s bluntness, but he was used to it by now. Seth could feel it though. A sliver, not even as big as the cell it was laid upon. But he could still feel its weight. Its pull…

  Its depth.

  ‘The abyss.’

  Seth froze and Speaker hanged his head.

  “That is where we were forced to lock it away, bury it deep inside the very means by which we even exist anymore. The hope that we could control it was shattered rather quickly. A hope that we could teach you to control it taking its place. Before we were… shot into your head… it was just free to spread and take hold. It fed on your emotions, your memories, things it was made of but never had. And in turn gave you nothing but the anger and wrath that it was in return. We could not let that happen to you. Could not let it control who you were as it did with… with the rest of your people. So we sealed it as soon as we arrived, sealed as much of what it had taken hold of so that it could not corrupt you further. But you broke that first seal. Shattered it apart… And proved you were the one in control. Now though. Now it is up to you to take back the rest that it took. And unmake what it has become.”

  The crowd began moving forward, toward that center, toward that sliver. Seth was frozen. He couldn’t move. That fear finding a hold.

  ‘I have to…’

  His doubts tearing him down.

  ‘I have to do this!’

  His dread leaking throu-

  ‘This is what I have to do!!’

  He shot his head up, his focus up, his mind all the way past whatever doubts tried to take hold. And so pushed forward alongside his friends. Threat and Speaker flanking as he advanced on that center, on the abyss he feared for too long already. The crowd mirrored his resolve, amplified it as if it were their own. Seth felt the city move as one. All converging on that once dreaded center.

  The buildings rising up above him. The high-rise yurts peaking their heights at the edge, forming walls of stone and metal around a wide open rotunda. The road ahead disappearing as it approached, seemingly falling into it like a gravity well. A jagged matte black piece of impossibly dense metal. Lensing and distorting all around it till it was sucked back in. But stopped in its destruction, surrounded in light, in a barrier. A bubble of energy that locked it tight. But he could feel the cracks in its surface, hear the hiss of escaping energy. Like a corona off of a sun. Like the bleed off a black hole being rounded back around.

  It flared and consumed everything it touched, ate it and absorbed, and gave it all back as wrath and power to repeat the cycle for as long as it could till all that it was too much of was filled in. Seth stopped at the road’s end, the whisper so unerringly clear but still disjointed like multiple voices trying to resonate in the hiss. Seth’s resolve couldn’t help but waver, couldn’t help but strain looking into the deep that once swallowed him. And yet…

  ‘I…’ “I will not let you have control of me!”

  His determination seemed to wash over the sliver, eliciting a flare from the abyss inside. He felt the whisper draw closer, like tendrils seeking to drag him away. But a sudden force acted upon them, squashed them down to the leak they sprang from. Threat extending his own focus out over the barrier, over the sliver of what he used to be. It strained against him, and he it. But he knew how to deal with its ilk. And he was not alone.

  Speaker joined in and extended his reach to stifle that flare. He mimicked Threat’s actions, his motives, collective consciousness flowing it all throughout. As the rest of the Garkah followed suit, all pressing down on the barrier that held the abyss, pressing down on that thing that called it home. But not letting it sink it deeper into itself. Instead grabbing hold as to never let it go.

  The hiss became a screech, the barrier waning as its energies became a part of the grip that held the abyss aloft in its pit, that pulled it up but held it tight. Seth knew this wouldn’t be enough, they would have done so long ago otherwise. This was their part to play here, and he knew what he had to do.

  He stepped forward, across the blanked space that the abyss created, passed the barrier that dissipated into the collective hold. In to the corona that beat against this small world it had once seeded. The abyss strained, but equal force met it with every flare, canceled out its attempts to snatch him and get free.

  Reaching the sliver, its surface was smooth but its edges were jagged like an arrow. Reaching out a hand, the abyss flared brighter. Reaching toward it, the Garkah were recoiled as it tried to pry their grip open and swallow him whole once and for all. Reaching in, he could feel it now. The thing inside, the thing that was roiling itself into something it should not be. It knew nothing, understood nothing, but knew it wanted out, wanted to feel, wanted to know, wanted other emotions then what it represented. It could do nothing but take, fill itself, fill the hole of its being and give back had collapsed it in on itself.

  And yet… finally reaching it true and solid… Seth couldn’t help but pity it.

  Born by accident, by random chance and terrible fate, from nothing but solidified destruction it could not understand. Then was discarded, left to rot in a pit it could only wail against.

  “Fine then. You want to feel what the real world is like! Here! Let me SHOW IT TO YOU!!!”

  Seth slammed his hands down, rippling that dark emptiness, adding his grip to everyone else’s. All at once he felt the abyss for all it was, felt it strain at the edges of this collective grasp, felt it not as a disembodied hiss but a living thing. A writhed agony, like an amorphous thought. Blind to everything, not knowing even itself. Raw emotion balled up and twisted, unable to know even just the calm of its prison. But Seth knew it now for what it was.

  And knew…

  What he…

  Had to do…!

  A figurative foot stomped back, a brace, a leverage upon the nothing that surrounded. To draw it out of its stagnant prison, draw it toward him with everything he had. He had to absorb it, meld and end this proto consciousness with his own. Prevent what could only be a tragedy should it ever gain anything of its own. Fill that hole and snuff it out.

  He pulled. It flailed. He pulled harder! A red light burned through the transparencies of his hands. Like a drop of pure singularity pulled from a dead star, it rippled the sliver. It rippled the simulate air. It was freed of the black prison it had been shoved into for years, but it was not free of him.

  He gripped it tight, held it close, spared this place of the wrath it shined, pulling it against his chest and feeling it so very true now. It beat against him, against his hold. Its power was torrential, quakes shaking the city, shaking everything with blind tantrum at what it saw as loss. But Seth held it there despite its wailing, despite the wrath that was not its own. Holding it, like an infant without a mother. Feeling it solidify as a memory…

  Not his.

  “It’s okay… You don’t have to hate anymore!”

  It was charred. Small. Crumbling perpetual in the hands that had tried to spare it the fate that befell it. An incitement. A travesty. An atrocity long paid for in blood and death. And something long since needing to be laid to rest. He pulled it in. The shaking condensing, rippling the form the Garkah had made for him. Containing that torrent and letting that burning glow meld with his. The flared died down, becoming part of this body. Becoming a part of him.

  So that Seth could feel all that it held. Know what it felt with every part of himself. He gave it his memories, his thoughts, his feelings, his very being unfettered so it could be something more than this abstract hollow. Everything it wanted so as to give what it sought so destructive. Give it peace. In return it gave him its pain, its agony, its fear, its want. The stale replayed nightmares it had lived as without end. The two felt each other as such small things. So reduced, so vulnerable, yet so destructive in their means. They knew each other, knew what each other were. What they were as both beings of fate. One power rampant and lost. The other wielder left dearth. Both now feeling what each other had been left with. Both knowing what must be done.

  And so Seth let all that was its hate go.

  And the two became one.

  That body, that facsimile, that made small being flared. Blinding out everything that it had been brought down to. The city, the Garkah, the cell this whole civilization lived upon. All were made witness to what they had hoped for. Seth focus hurtled away, the roiling storm he just pulled into himself surging through and crashing him back. Out of himself, out of the world he harbored, out and out to return in full.

  And take that blinding form with him, as it had always been his. Always been who he was.

  Till the light died down, leaving him reeling into the darkness once again. An empty breath burning his lungs he didn’t know he was holding, a weight unimaginable pressing down on him. And yet wafting away like so many an empty sleep.

  No… Not that same emptiness.

  His body felt heavier, real and true. He felt the helmet on his head, the wall of the arena at his back. He was awake, returned to the world mundane and big, but…

  But changed from before.

  He could remember memories that weren’t his, see the bits and pieces of a home he’d never known. A world very much not this one. Colder, dangerous, yet comforting to those who knew it. And yet a fire scorched across it, ignite damnation. Swallowed all in its path and buried all that had once been beneath. The breadth of time that proceeded. The sadness and anger that elicited. The happiness so long forgotten. This was what Threat had lost… and what he had lost himself to.

  Seth pulled the helmet off his head, let the present retake him, but… The helmet wasn’t as heavy as it was before. In fact it felt like it weighed next to nothing. The arena’s light strained his eyes like they had never been opened before, but quickly adjusted before he could so much as squint. He saw the same trainers, saw Razor still fighting for his life, saw Kabar still straining against rainbow fire. They were still sparring like almost no time had passed. There was even still a glare upon him from Hothead’s sneering face but…

  But that phantom scar on his eye ceased to itch, like its source was cut off and rendered moot. He couldn’t hear the whisper any more, not even as he tried. He couldn’t feel the gravity trying to pull him away from himself.

  It really was gone.

  The abyss really was gone.

  And now all that it was, a torturous memory given life it could not experience, was now a part of him.

  He could still see it, that small form charred to a crisp in… in Threat’s arms. Feel its weight flack away. Feel the world burn, and yet become hollow and cold. As everything he was, everything he had, was swallowed up in the wake of their ashes.

  Seth took a breath. Took the moment of someone else’s past passing him. Let the small pieces beyond it stay beyond. It wasn’t his to hold. But still he wanted to reach back in and hug Threat for all he felt. Be there for the one who had been there for him.

  But, despite that. Despite this new emptiness, this want and pity. He could still hear something below all the continuing clang and effort of those still training. A low chatter, voices not ahead or echoing. He put his helmet down at his side, a narrowly inaudible ping escaping as it was softly put down. The voices were understandable, but muffled. Like they were in another room. He tried to focus to them, but an ache flared in his head, a dull pain throbbed deep in his brain like freshly worked muscle. The chatter exacerbating as it rose to the same space. The same…

  Those voices. He’d heard them so many times before but it was like they were never this detailed. Like, like he was standing in the middle of… Of the control room the Garkah set up to support him. The scientists and analysts that operated it. The booting clack of their constructs and the soft tap of their inputs. And…

  ‘Speaker?’

  The voices hushed. Puzzled feelings from the Garkah.

  ‘Speak!’

  Concentrated disappointment.

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  ‘I CAN HEAR YOU!!!’

  Through the whistling and clanging, the thudding and whooshing, through the hustle and bustle and everything muting them for so very long. Seth could hear him loud and clear!

  “Wait… you can-”

  ‘I don’t need the quiet anymore!’

  Seth felt it. His focus so utterly clear across the whole of that room, across the whole of the Garkah’s city it connected to. He could hear them, feel them, focus and know like that spotlight was free and the limelight utterly indiscriminate. He shifted back to Speaker, Threat in behind him feeling even prouder than before.

  “There you go taking to power too damn fast again. At least this time you're in control of it. It must have sharpened your senses beyond what even we could teach you.”

  Seth looked back down at himself, flexed his hands. The power he usually focused about, the feeling of it moving at his will, it used to be separate and contained. Like floodgates before channels. Now it was everywhere, coursing through every inch like he was made of it. Bulging to brightness at his focus, spreading out to fill in space. Not along his nerves, but along every fiber of his being.

  Speaker shifted to one of the readouts in the control room as the thought struck home.

  “This… This is what a true Garkah is. Power beyond just matter and flesh. But these readings though, your suit might not be adequate anymore.”

  Seth stood up, it was like he hadn’t strained himself against the suit and the whisper. He felt stronger than ever. Lighter than ever. Like every breath was double and every thought was blistering. Like he could count every grain of sand stuck between his fingers. Like he could see the small movements of the electricity coursing through the walls. No… No he see that. It faded off with distance, but he could see the wires alternate down their paths. Spread and splay in angles and into recesses set aside to hold them till they were needed. And then flow away with the ebb of sustainable frequency.

  But… but something nagged at the back of his mind. Ran fraught through this hype. He felt Threat harden as it became clear to him what part of him Seth had found. The memory that hurt so bad it destroyed their people. It was still too clear, like Seth had been there and not just told of what occurred. He could feel every bit of it, of what Threat had done up until he could not feel anymore. As… as he lost himself to this very same power.

  The abyss, the stuff that they had been carrying with them on the Ark, it had been carrying these memories. It had been those memories. And so now Seth was them too. The hate for a society that wanted nothing to do with him. The wrath at the lengths they took to kill him when he fought back. All of this building up power as he took from those who tried to kill him. Until… until he was lost. And could no longer hold back.

  It was a hell all its own, the death and destruction. Both in his wake. And ahead of him. Seeing it out of order and churning apart. Twisting as he lost all cohesion. Till it all crashed to nothing and became what it had been.

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  It was a past long gone, over and done. Longing to be atoned for. Seth breathed in again, almost feeling every molecule that entered his lungs, feeling that power flare with every tensing muscle and rushing vain. Let those memories, that pain, cling to his being like sediment. Find a place in the tension that it bred.

  All so he could let it go to.

  Let that tension strike slack, let it all go to entropy. It was pointless to keep hold of, not his and not to be relived. Melting away with a sigh, as his mind went blank, his focus let drift from himself. Let the world, the now, the present stake overlap. This was his power now, his cause to take up. And it would not burn this world again.

  He looked down at his helmet and picked it up, like he had messed up and made it out of plywood. The sounds of sparring trail off as he turned to his headless suit left slumped by the wall. The trainers were calling it for lunch, Razor heaving from desperately blocking all of Blade Tone’s strikes. Kabar simmering at the display no longer reverberating through everything. His trainers mocking it as just a desperate show of what strength he had. Seth ignored it and reattached the helmet to the suit, socketing and twisting it back on its swivel. But he felt Hothead’s leer as they all exited the arena.

  “Don’t worry!! I’ll make sure to keep the food warm for you this time!!”

  Energy welled up under that ire and gyre, pooling in every juncture as his body tensed, an errant discharge carrying over the suit and flaring a glare for him. Seth had enough problems all his own to deal with, he didn’t need to take on anyone else’s. But he could handle this. He could feel all his new power ebb and flow with the increasing beat of his heart. Harmonize, like there was a rhythm to his being. But still he knew he didn’t need it right now. He let it recede, let this more personal anger go despite its ever presence. And yet felt a separate pull upon it as it left. One he almost instinctively expected.

  It was like a dark spot in the night sky. A new abyss pulling at all that electricity in his body. In the very wall of this arena. The Ark, just sitting there hidden away. No existential crisis brought on by a malformed consciousness, just a solid hunk of overly conductive extraterrestrial metal. A fossilized black hole wanting sustenance. And for some reason… Seth felt like breaking it the fuck open.

  He left the suit behind and wandered over to the storage door that housed the titanic glorified snow globe, feeling around for any hint of someone watching. The control booth was empty, no one eying him from the stands. A slight bit more focus to his senses and the periphery began to teem. The walls highlighting their contents but forms moving past them through the halls. Nervous systems lighting them up for him to track. Gaggles of heroes going off to eat lunch or head out. No one bothering with the arena.

  Seth shifted his focus about, back to the control booth. The main terminal, the arena’s recording systems. What had required time and help became like an arm stretching out to snatch the wires within. Read through all they bore, feed it wholesale to the systems in his head, and pick it apart to feed it back in. Looping empty feeds so no one would see what he was about to do. And since Para was out doing whatever the fuck he does all day, he was good.

  ‘That was almost too easy. This shit is amazing!’

  The storage door was locked with a keypad, and Seth was already putting a hand to it. Focus running down through the wiring, the circuitry, the pulses set in frequencies to pass along the binary. The physical lock was tied to a specific code expected from the system in the keypad, so he bypassed the pad all together. An arc of electricity jumping circuits and hardware gates, mimicking the unlock signal without needing a proper code.

  The door shuttered upward slowly, too slowly. His focus rewound, retooled. Gripped the door for the conductive metal it was made of, the chains that pulled it, the electric motors driving it. The door was pushed up, the chain pulled harder, and the motor sped up a few more notches. Maybe a bit too many but nothing outright screeching. Though he backed off a little, aware of his own overbearance

  ‘Okay, maybe I’m overdoing it just a little?’

  “You think!?”

  Threat was astounded, just yesterday he needed nearly half an hour to get in the right head space, now he was just throwing himself about like it was nothing. Seth accepted his worry and assented. This was awesome, but definitely a bit much.

  The dark unlit storage space still yawned at him though. The matte black abomination within blending almost perfectly into the darkness, but he could feel every inch of it like was whirlpool in the sea. He put a hand to it, hesitating slightly as he remembered, as he saw that sudden crash to nothing that was one Threat’s separated memories. But Speaker moved to sooth that hesitation.

  “Its systems are long dead, drained dry and smelted by that oncoming overload. It will not accept passengers ever again. But it will accept energy. And it is greedy.”

  Seth pressed his hand down. Its surface was cold, dormant, but smooth despite the circuitry that ran along its surface. He felt deeper, shifted his focus like a lens, felt edges of that gravity well pulling him in abate. His focus passing into the core like it had for the Garkah’s city. But inside was a poor comparison. Connections leaking like pipes out into it. Ohm’s contribution of freed electrons pooling like a small lake, spread thin over the space that once was home to thousands. But there was more. Older energy from other electric heroes probably. It stagnated below Ohm’s, separated. But was markedly less.

  The Ark wasn’t quite so dead.

  There was a draw at the base of this stagnant pool. Something he could follow down, deeper and deeper. Thinner and thinner. The energy almost reaching its physical limit, single electrons locked in an ever flowing stream. Waving up and down, back and forth. The odd few dissipating beyond what he could ever hope to see, leaving the plain of his power’s possibilities. But all of it humming despite the life sentence of their incarceration, playing a tune with their very existences.

  ‘That’s it.’

  The signal that held the Ark together. The key thread that wove this tapestry. This line of electrons that drove down and disseminated throughout the whole of the Ark. Flowing through every crystalline structure, binding it all together and crushing it all down to nearly singularity. A feedback loop of artificial gravity locked so tight it could never be broken.

  Snipping this thread would be meaningless. One lost electron would be insignificant to its vast whole, replaced by one taken from the pool or just stretched over by its innumerable brethren. And outlasting it would be a fool’s errand, every molecule of this behemoth was bound tight, so draining it would take time and cause more damage than it was worth. No, every infinitesimal electron on that chain had to be taken hold of, wrenched from its place, freed from their abyssal servitude all at once. Made to sing a different tune, one of freedom and release. But this chain crisscrossed every inch, nearly every atomic structure of this thing. It was almost unfathomable, so dense it was nearly impossible to differentiate where the thread flowed. But despite the task, Seth felt like trying.

  He gripped, the metal had no give but was conductive to the truest of faults. And that was Seth’s power to a t. Magnetic force whirling about, locking it to his palm, and giving him all the control he needed.

  ‘And I may as well try out all this strength while I’m trying.’

  He gripped with his other hand, a similar magnetic grip clinging to the lower surface of the sphere. He pulled, the force straining but not giving, fed to extremes as his focus centered. As the sphere was dragged out into the light it sucked away. He dug his heels in with every backward step, crunching sand to dust as he tested colossal new limits. Finally needing all that power he’d taken, feeling it flex and flare with every move, in ever muscles. And over all of it.

  It was like the Ark’s thread was weaved through him as well, keeping everything together despite the forces pressed against it. But it was also weaved into muscles all its own, adding to and augmenting every movement he made. And feeding hungrily at his reserves, at what he’d called his reserves. At…

  At the very fiber of his being. Made wholly of electrons threaded together. This…

  ‘This was what the laceroids were made of. This is what took away their humanity.’

  Seth stopped dead, the Ark was fully revealed for every melded circuit and tarnished scar across its surface. He could feel the flow and dance of the thread within him against the tune of the Ark. See the breadth of its density as he stared at his hands. The limits that they expanded upon. Once they were but nerves and fibrous foci, nothing he could see or feel just use blindly. Now though… Now it was his entire body. His entire being.

  ‘Now it will never run rampant again.’

  He closed in, bringing his grip lower on the sphere.

  ‘Now will never again threaten this world. Because I won’t let it!’

  He shifted even lower, pushing and pulling against the Ark’s bulk.

  ‘I will help people with it! I will save people with it!’

  It quaked, rose, titanic forces of weight and might clashing as the Ark was lifted from the ground. The floor buried beneath him creaked in protest as the darkening behemoth was denied gravity's hold. Rising higher and higher to shadow him and him alone. Finally coming to rest on Seth’s shoulder, resounding low thud sent through the whole arena.

  ‘Because I have enough debts to repay. Enough promises to keep. I will heal this world whether it likes it or not.’

  Seth smirked as he started up, started walking the Ark up to the arena’s track. Deep low thuds reverberating with every step. Feeling for its warble, its shift, learning its entirety little by little as he began to follow the unprepared lines. The going was easy, the Ark was just a cumbersome hold. A lot of surface to contend with and only two hands.

  ‘But let’s see if we can kick things up a little.’

  He increased his pace, keeping an even and level gait, but speeding up gradually. Those thuds getting deeper as his own force was put in. Before long he was briskly traversing the arena’s track like an evening stroll and not like he was hauling an immeasurably dense and undoubtedly hundreds of tons heavy metal ball with his bare hands. All the while feeling out every bit of its tune. From amp to frequency to esoteric rumble.

  As he rounded the track for a third lap though, he felt eyes fall upon him. A presence in the control booth seen for its nervous signals and felt by that persistent extra sense. But it wasn’t alarming. Seth felt their surprise at the mass of metal passing their window, but knew they were trustworthy. Because it was Mediknight, walking in with what looked like coffee to prep the afternoon simulations, but was getting more than he bargained for.

  ‘He probably won’t like it, but I may as well give him a show!’

  Seth put a foot down at the edge of the track and nearly cracked the floor hidden beneath the sand. He cratered and cut the corners out completely, rocketing over the middle of the arena with a massive kick off. Rippling the air as far too much mass was carried across it. Landing on the other side with quaking thud, digging a rut deep into the sand. Sliding to a stop, priming, and turning about to do it again. The air boomed as he rocketed off across the track, shooting dust back that had piled up at his feet. Another concussive landing on the other side. And as he turned back to launch again, to feel the drag and weight of it free of gravity, he felt more eyes.

  ‘Aegis?! Where the hell’s she been?’

  She’d walked up to the window just as awestruck as Medi, as they watched the ultra-massive hunk of metal fly over the arena track again.

  ‘Whatever, it’s time to shatter this damn thing!’

  Seth rumbled the arena and rounded his last leap on the south side, shooting off toward the north and rocking the windows of the booth. Half way over though he shifted, rearing back and dragging the Ark higher on his grip. With an almighty toss, he brought the Ark down into center of the arena, slamming it to a stop but not impacting it into the floor. Metal clanging the floor below, but momentum didn’t stop. The excessive counterweight of the Ark hurling him to the opposite side of the arena. Landing him hard in a sliding final halt.

  Standing back up, his focus rose with him. On the power he had and the power he could use around him. He could feel through the arena’s systems, the emitters, the capacitors, the inlets running out and away, the junctions splitting into the city’s powerlines. His sight, his feeling, had expanded out greater than ever before. But was stifled it before it could become unbridled pull.

  ‘Can’t siphon off from the Hill, too monitored. Have to borrow a little from the city again.’

  All at once his spread out focus thundered, latched to the power lines buried in the streets below, the ancillary systems run across the city, the things no one would miss if they were off for a few seconds. The plaza’s street lights, its shops, their air conditioning. He took hold of the little things, the wires in between, the gaps that power could flow freely back through. And as it all became apparent, all became his. So that only then did he pull.

  The air in the arena shocked to glow as his arms railed to his sides, ionized in wispy strands of free electrons pulled through inert matter. Into him. And into his suit. Eyes lighting up with that plasma blue of true power usage, as it straightened up from its slump, pulled free of the wall sparking arcs off of it, and walked on its own. It purpose as repository, as capacitor to hold all that Seth commanded. To give space and clearance between all or nothing. As he found the right tune to beat into that ball.

  It stomped up to the ruts Seth had dug with his heels and began mimicking his stance like before. But different this time. It was all his will, spared and fluxed, to match him in kind. To prove he was the one truly driving that suit. He finished taking in energy for himself, enough to match but not to blind, and shifted to a stance to meet an oncoming attack. But the suit didn’t mimic, instead it stanced up to be that attack. Grinding heavy sand into fine particulate, and maybe proving rather hypocritically that it was a powersuit. Though only for one who this power.

  The sand burst, it charged forward, stomping toward the Ark with malicious intent only he could provide. Before reaching firing range and double foot leaping, pulling and priming to make contact like a firing pin of a howitzer. Sparks haloed, friction fire flying as both bodies rocket away from impact. As the air kicked beyond the bounds of caliber. The suit flipping and landing back in those ruts. But the massive ball shot away like a serve meant for kaiju!

  An arm locked in preparation shot forward, met it with force straining to go unbound, monstrous and more. More force than was imparted to make sure it rang. And so his arm didn’t simply explode like its new primer. The whole arena heaved, roof shutters rocking from the gale force aftershocks. Seth felt the reverberation that his punch caused in the Ark, the distortion in the chains. But not its full song.

  ‘Need to hit harder!’

  The air nearly tore asunder as gravity was denied by sheer velocity. The suit shifted and another all mighty punch struck home, equal in its titanic force. No risk of breaking its bounds because they built it for worse. And glutted it to catastrophic. The Ark rebounded back for another ring. The windows of the control booth shook from each impact and the ungodly overpressure of the Ark’s wake. This was starting to get out of hand.

  ‘Then let’s FINISH IT!!’

  As the Ark came again at him, Seth shifted, jumping airborne and straight kicking it back toward the suit, the hit nearly reverberating the whole damn Hill. The suit, though, shot forward. Arms slamming together low, intent to serve the Ark up. Landing and locking back down, Seth shot after it. Sand blasting back and momentum already too far gone. At the halfway point, the suit locked down, straddled the indent that the Ark had made. So that with, one final flare, it could be spiked up. A hit to throw it into the sky, its wake a wave of sand to follow it up through the open roof.

  As the suit followed through its upward double slam by stretching out and lotusing itself opening. An invitation, and the realization of all that stored up power. Seth pivoted his course, matching the suit's stretch and slamming home into the gel lined bosom, plates and panels closing with heavy cacophony. And all his power surging together!

  The suit ached and sizzled, copper lines and conductive plates strained by the excess energy roaring through it.

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to hold for much longer.’

  Seth stretched low, over dense weight sinking him into the indent and putting him directly under the Ark. He skimmed a fist almost to the ground and priming to leap after it. But he held, loaded, found his song. The sand repelling from around his fist, rippling distinctive in patterned waveform, a vibration too strong to be contained by mere matter.

  Mimicked that tone, that tune locked in the Ark’s chains, its binding signal, its only key! He knew it by heart, felt it prickly through his hand. The frequency, the strength, the push and pull and driving chorus!

  The Ark reached its zenith, began to fall back down, terminal velocity reached as that waveform peaked. So that finality may come for this broken monument to already punished sin.

  ‘NOW!!!’

  The sand around him repulsed in fear, that same peaking form, except now it was his whole body and soul and all. As he released his jump, and the massive force locked in it. The sand exploding away in another calamitous boom, shake the arena in his wake. Aiming upward. The Ark already back through the roof, as these titanic forces came together at so long a last. As Seth threw everything into his punch.

  As perception slowed the world to crawling flow, as the Ark seemed stopped in midair on his blow. Equal forces meeting and canceling each other out. Senses overdriven to make all of this count. Shockwaves propagating up from the leap that came before, impacting the only visible result of this torrential score. Contact coming with almost disappointing softness, but then that waveform found its home. And cracked this empty sarcophagus!

  A uniform wave of illuminated cracks flashing up the Ark’s surface. The illumination spreading without care for set purpose. Electrons released from their eternal servitude, shooting away and ionizing the air with bright shining gratitude. A neon aurora streaming into being, as the electrons blinked away in joy at their freeing. As the Ark shattered at long fucking last! Jagged chunks loosed pitifully like overweight shrapnel, with not grand crescendo to match this blast.

  Only uniform separation, and withdrawing perception.

  The control booth watched, awe and horror grazing off in the rain. Normal speed returned to the world as the heavy jagged pieces fell to the arena floor. Stabbing it into aerosol to fall back down in kind. Seth landed back in the indent, a battering deluge of jagged yet symmetrical pieces crashing over him. Abating into a ring as it petered out. As he rose up from the center of this new field of black knives, like a volcanic landscape risen up through the floor. Radiating out and thinning with distance, unlucky pieces piled up with no ground left to stab. He stood for a moment, still in awe himself. His first self-set hurdle… shattered to bits.

  Then the reality set in. Namely his suit melting down while he wore it.

  “Gah! Hot! Hot!!!”

  Copper wiring oozing a little too close for comfort, that ring over his head smelling of burned hair, the heat starting to boil the gel and singe his skin. Even what was left of his view screen was melting down. Struggling, he quickly folded out the release button and smashed it for all the saved extinguisher foam it held back. It screamed as it fizzled away on contact with barely a degree difference.

  “Shit! SHIT!!!”

  Seth quickly pulled at the energy in the suit, forcing it into his control, into just one single hand. He slammed it down and released all of it into the arena floor, to ground, to dissipation. The last of the sand around rippling away, exposing the metal floor ringed out under him. As the control booth’s access door slammed opened. The suit cooling its melted capacitors as Aegis and Mediknight slowly approached the field of Ark chunks. Aegis had her hair in her hand and was clearly stumbling for an understanding.

  “What… How… When… WHAT?!?”

  Seth straightened up and popped his helmet open, a release of steam and hot air adding not so subtle nuance.

  “W-what? You wanted me to stop holding back right?”

  He smirked jokingly, but felt the gravity of both his actions and actual gravitational weight down on him. He definitely overdid it. Despite his strength and despite his ability, despite all that he’d just been suffused with, he still needed power to run it all. And he just used up a lot damn near all of it. He slumped as his suit weighed his over exerted body down. Aegis’s face was twitching with an overwhelming concern. And anger, lots of anger.

  “But this…! This!!”

  Mediknight stepped forward, clear disquiet in his stare.

  “This is too much power kid!”

  Seth creaked back up, pulling a bit of power back just so he could walk out of here. And scraped an armored hand on the back of his head.

  “Yeah… yeah it probably was. *rgh* But I had to try. I couldn’t just… let it all go to waste.”

  Aegis and Mediknight’s expressions stayed overwhelmed, but grew more puzzled.

  “Let what go to waste?”

  He was going to have to explain a lot. Or at least make up enough.

  “I… I figured something out about myself. About the power I have. I also may have broken into the sphere’s garage and… studied it. A bunch. It helped though. It really helped. It, well I guess it was, put together with this really tiny string of electrons that were resonated at a certain frequency and… uh…

  They were losing no hint of ire. Bearing down on him like an inquisition to a heretic. Even as Aegis looked down at the almost completely symmetrical yet jagged chunks that lined the ground, picking one up and showing the destruction of the indestructible clear as day.

  “But this is not…! How the fuck?!”

  Seth went flat slightly, but relented. Having to let a few cats out of the bag was going to be the only way to get through this.

  “My power is… complicated.”

  Mediknight glared up as he examined a piece as well.

  “You’re putting that too mildly!”

  “Okay, my power is fucking too much sometimes! I keep it quiet and hidden because I don’t fully trust it! Don’t full trust others to accept it! And… and I don’t trust myself sometimes! There! So… So I had to prove I could do… something.”

  Seth stared down between the both of them, only somewhat hiding his anxiety at telling a little too much truth. The facts could be faked but the admission was real. He did trust them though. They both knew some of this. They had to by now. Aegis sighed away her exacerbation, but rubbed her head at the undoubted headache this whole thing was causing.

  “Well yeah, we already knew that you had a lot more than you were letting on! Ya kinda suck at hiding it!”

  ‘Ouch.’

  “But this… This is something nobody- NOBODY has been able to do! Let’s just go over the how. How the FUCK did you do something that-

  *beep* An earpiece in her ear took her attention.

  “hmm… Shit!”

  *click* And then her phone demanded everything.

  “Shit! Shitshitshit!! Para just got back!!”

  ‘CRAAAAAAP!!!’

  Aegis turned to Mediknight, desperately intent on trying to explain away why the indestructible Laceroid sphere was just destructed by a fucking trainee. Let alone the one trainee he hated the most. Seth meanwhile grabbed up a central chunk, stuffed it in his suit as he stepped out, and hucking the whole damn thing out over the knife field. Leaping out after it himself.

  ‘Shit. I can’t leave it like this! Ugh… fuck this is going to need some power.’

  Seth focused, fuck subtlety, he pulled power straight from the hardlight array into himself. The sand at his feet repelled as he accumulated. Then he refocused on the Ark’s shattered pieces, on the key thread’s signal he could still remember. Slowly- No, gotta go fucking quickly! He haphazardly shot his focus and a new key threading electron chain through the Ark, tracing as much of its old path as he could.

  “Focus on the outside!! The inside is too complex for you right now!!”

  A helping hand from the Garkah took the hardest off of him because this is not the time for learning the hard way! Once in place he pulled it together like loose stitching, dragging it up in a surge buzzing ionization, reforming it back into a single solid sphere. The pieces fusing together, hissing with escaping heated air from the molecularly welding cracks. The matte black surface coming back together in the indent as Seth let his hands drop and a huff release. Now this was seriously overdoing it!

  He finished and pulled away as quickly as he could manage. Turning to see Aegis and Mediknight’s now double shocked faces. Seth approached and shushed their shock as he felt Para approach the main door, wordlessly eying it to draw their attention. Both shaking their expressions away. As the door opened violently.

  “What in the FUCKING HELL has been going on in here!? I’ve been getting sonic alerts for the past 3 minutes and a UFO sighting to boot!! Someone want to explain WHY the Laceroid Sphere is out! And why an unauthorized trainee is present in the same place!!”

  ‘…Really? That’s a problem for you?’

  Before Seth could express his slightedness, Aegis, sweating profusely either from stress or by reflex, wiped her forehead and barged ahead.

  “Sorry about that! Figured I would try a new weight training regimen with the sphere, these guys were already here. Heh, they were just as worried about it as you are.”

  Aegis almost too nonchalantly rubbed the back of her head, drawing too close to the line of humble brag and hiding something. Para looked like he was having none of it as he stared straight at Seth, trying to burn holes through his innocent fa?ade. Seth kept his cool, even trying to look exacerbated at Para seemingly jumping to conclusions. They literally passed on his way in here. Para turned to though Mediknight.

  “If that’s true then why are you down here Medi? Don’t you have simulations today?”

  Mediknight didn’t move in the slightest.

  “I was making sure that Seth was safe when I first heard the booming. He was scheduled for this slot. I didn’t even know Aegis was back yet till I came out here.”

  ‘Calm like a fucking mountain lake. Goddamn I’m glad he’s on my side.’

  Para softened, but remained perturbed at something.

  “Aegis? Did you forget we have doors and time slots for a reason?”

  “Heh. I…*sigh* Okay fine I’m a lazy moron. Ya happy? I just got the idea in my head and had to go with it. And it’s been a while since I’d seen my trainees, so why not show off a bit. And it’s just so much easier to fly in, you know? Well you don’t but-”

  “Okay now you’re pushing it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Just learn some manners already! And you!!”

  Para switched back to Seth. Narrowly catching the relief on his face. He didn’t say anything, just narrowed his glare. Matched beat for beat since this was just outright harassment at this point. Seth kept his relief in as he returned and slammed the door he came in through. Mediknight staying his utter calm as always. And Aegis-

  “PHEWW that-”

  Both Seth and Mediknight shot simultaneous death glares, as she turned to them openly expressing her relief in ear shot of a FUCKING SOUND HERO!!!

  “…was a hell of a work out. I’m starving. Let’s get lunch before it’s too late.”

  ‘And I’m the one bad at hiding things?’

  A hollow throat clear stopped her as she went to leave. Turning her back to see Medi pointing a thumb over his shoulder. At the restored Ark. Her expression deflated as she silently mouthed “Really?” Before slumping and moving to haul the Ark back into storage. Again. Mean eyeing Seth as she passed. He kept a flat smile, desperate to not dig his predicament deeper than it already was.

  All three left and headed to the canteen. Only finding a spattering of heroes to contend with. Most of whom side eyes Aegis like Para had sent around a message about all the earthshattering noise. Naming and shaming was definitely his MO. A thankful fair few trays were left to serve as most of the trainees and heroes had moved on or back to training.

  ‘And I guess Ambrose understood that serving a little extra food was better than having more broken tables.’

  Seth took up a tray, his power boost and overzealous weight training adding up to mean hunger he couldn’t place, but knew full well the remedy. Pesto Coated Power Pasta though…

  ‘He really needs to just stop naming his dishes already.’

  Seth sat at his typical table, still cracked from weeks prior but at least glued together. But instead of sitting alone he had Mediknight and Aegis taking up opposite seats to his. Mediknight didn’t take anything, already had lunch more than likely. But Aegis scooped up a tray as well and immediately started eating, eliciting a disappointed look from Mediknight.

  “What? I wasn’t lying, I’m hungry. Why do you think came back early.”

  Seth chuckled slightly, content at having someone to eat with again. But it was clear this wasn’t going to be a social call as Mediknight turned back to him, intent on hearing out the rest of his explanation.

  What little remained of the lunch rush talked openly, and the kitchen was full of dish clinking and running water. Enough sonic cover hopefully, if not enough of a distraction. Seth took small bites of the soft steamed pasta and sighed, formulating just what to say.

  “I… I can manipulate, absorb, and use electricity to enhance myself.”

  He was going to have to throw a lot out there and hope for the best.

  “I can’t say I have full control of my powers, but I’m not at risk of blowing up at the drop of a hat.”

  “Ohr a shifcken sfrip.”

  Aegis looked up from her plate, mouth full of pasta.

  “*gulp* I heard Hothead was harassing you after Para left you to stew outside. …I’m sorry I wasn’t there. The rest of the Elite get called around so much that, once we were freed up, we get…”

  Mediknight glared at her, decrying her excuses. Seth smiled.

  “It’s okay. Samurai kept him in line.”

  He looked down.

  “But yeah, if I get too angry things can get… dicey.”

  Mediknight straightened

  “Like in your Berta scenario?”

  Seth shuttered slightly, but his scar did not, only the memory of that smothering darkness now cleansed. A releasing sigh attempting to push the now dealt with past.

  “Yeah… My suit is meant to contain my powers, to keep myself from hurting people inadvertently. Keep what I take in check if not outright weigh me down. And admittedly I’ve gotten the hang of things… For the most part. Heh, breaking the sphere was a hurdle I gave myself the first time I saw it… And felt it. Para was probably a little too right about that motivation thing huh?”

  Mediknight leaned into Seth’s admission. Slats glaring down on him.

  “But how did you know how to break it?”

  Seth straightened up. Mediknight knew a lot already, if not more after all this.

  “I-I can see and sense electricity, though that’s probably common. But I guess I can feel it deeper than most? Like it’s… more than just electricity. More than just indecipherable energy. Most other electric heroes concentrate on one aspect to enhance right, or only focus their power in certain places so they can control it better? Like it’s a physical object or a state of matter. Well, I see it as…as a rhythm. Like I can see and feel the movement of the electrons making it all up. I don’t really do anything as crude as project it, but it’s… like it’s a part of me almost. Like a heartbeat to a bass line, if not deeper than that.”

  Both heroes squinted at his admission, watching him pull his arms up and see through himself a little.

  “It’s like… physical fibers were run through me and tuned to my being. There’s even artificial muscle and connective tissues, like those theoretical exosuit designs that tried to build external muscles with reeler servos and carbon nanotub-”

  “Stop. How does this lead back to the sphere?”

  Mediknight kept pressing for answers, and tried to keep Seth on track. His admission becoming more like an actual introspection.

  “…It’s… where I learned to look at myself like that. To see into myself. I looked into it with my power. Focused around, looked for answers as to why it was so strong. It kinda helped that Ohm gave it a charge I could follow. After that it took a while. You, uh, should probably make the lock on its door stronger. Heh. But still, I saw it. A thread, a key thread. It was practically just a line of electrons fused together into a single chain, but it was what was keeping it together. So, I worked out what that all meant, how electrons end up chained together like that. It was a process. But, well you saw what it allowed me to do. Still, breaking it though required testing, hitting it to get a good ring out of the thread. It just needed to be resonated the right way for it to all fall apart and… yeah fall apart.”

  Mediknight looked to contemplate what all that meant, Aegis meanwhile continued eating, but poked her fork at him to get her point across.

  “*gup* That’s still too much power Seth.”

  Mediknight straightened out of his thinking.

  “She’s right, what you displayed is several orders of magnitude too high for a novice. Let alone someone who, by their own admission, can’t fully control their powers.”

  “I-”

  “But… in the end that’s why you came here right? To get a grip on your powers?”

  Seth saw the look he was getting, Mediknight was looking for coverage in case things went south, not justification to kick him out.

  “Y-yeah… well… Really I just wanted to-”

  “That’s good enough.”

  Aegis finished her pasta and put her fork down.

  “Yeah we know. Want to pay off the debts you feel you owe. I was in the room, remember?”

  Seth went flat and shrugged.

  ‘Why was I even explaining anything if they know everything apparently?’

  “But listen. That kind of power makes people nervous.”

  Aegis was done being nonchalant.

  “Too many of these hot shots will see that kind of strength as a threat. Especially from someone who they’ve already written off. Trust me, for as ‘nice’ as things seem on the outside, the League is a power political furball. Everyone is vying to be seen as strong or useful. It’s the only way to get anywhere around here. And anyone seen rocking the boat, like you just did, is asking to get sent to a post either far away or just go straight up unlisted for ‘public safety’ reasons. A culture of fat trimming and aggressive professionalism has turned this place inside out since…”

  Aegis hesitated.

  “Since the crisis. Technically your class is an outlier. Thanks to me at least. But once you guys are in, you’ll see for yourselves. The League’s not what it used to be. Not after all its gone through.”

  Mediknight drew back attention.

  “You need to keep your power hidden. Just enough to pass graduation and get posted. Though seeing as Para has stripped your dossier to the barest scrap of information, that won’t be difficult officially. Just-”

  “Just keep holding back.”

  Aegis barged back in. Seth wanted to point out the contradiction but-

  “I know what I told you before! Just… sometimes… Ugrrhh! Sometimes it’s better if people don’t know just how strong you really are. Some people just can’t handle it.”

  Seth held off but… strangely remembered what Ms. Mahan had said.

  ‘Is… is she really holding back that much?’

  Seth smiled again, chuckled at the fact that she had been right.

  “That’s… That’s something I can do. Besides, everyone thinks I’m just a powerless rich kid with a fancy suit anyway. They aren’t looking at me as a threat… Right?”

  Aegis smirked and nodded, but Mediknight looked like he knew something else. They both looked at him in simultaneous worry.

  “I don’t know much, but Para knows you’re hiding more of what you can do. He’s always been of the mind that the only way to show who you truly are is with a big enough push. You wearing that suit and keeping your full power under wraps just made him focus on you. I don’t know if he intends something more, but you scared him during the Berta scenario.”

  Aegis looked down.

  “Scared me too.”

  Seth sighed.

  “I scared myself.”

  Everyone stopped for a beat before Aegis shook the sullen thoughts away.

  “At any rate, just… don’t go breaking any more unbreakable things from now on. Okay.”

  Seth shrugged and smiled.

  “Well, technically it’s not unbreakable now. Or at least it’s a little more breakable than it was before. I… don’t think I know how to sew.”

  “Well now you reminded me, you need to watch out for Techno as well. He’s pissed about the damage you did to the hardlight arrays, he just doesn’t know for sure it was you. If he found out about this, or that piece you stole, he’d probably want you vivisected.”

  Seth went wide eyed at the implication of being strapped to a lab table and cut open to be studied.

  “Hey, just keep your head on straight and things will be fine.”

  Seth grimly smiled, but melted back to genuine as Aegis chuckled off the tension. He had his allies, to a degree. And hopefully they stayed that way. He finished his lunch and walked back out while Aegis and Mediknight returned to their duties. His suit left outside the canteen so it wouldn’t draw attention.

  Lifting it up, the Ark piece jostling inside causing a hollow series of tinks. He’d done what he’d set out to do, had power more than he’d ever imagined, but now had what he needed to make sure he stayed a step ahead of it. This metal was made by the Garkah after all, so adding it to his suit was almost preordained. With it he could keep himself in control and let loose all the same. So, it was time for a bit of forging again.

  *click*

  “It’s time. Do what you will.”

  “Heh… Took your time. So be it. Let us see how they perform.”

  *click*

  “And how they die.”