A fear ran down Seth’s spine truly primal, the phantom sting of so many practice rounds smacking him in the forehead forcing every muscle to clench on reflex. But this was a wholly different beast to what he faced in simulation. This commander stood out against the open and busted fa?ade of the bank, completely ignoring his own vulnerability. His mangled face smiling halfcocked and curled, staring out into the battlefield in vague show. As he pulled up the megaphone mounted onto the milspec suit that was his sentinel. And in doing so, Seth saw that his vulnerabilities were a bit more pronounced than already judged. His right hand was wretched, only a thumb, ring, and pinky left to use. So that fear evaporated into cringe and confusion. He wasn’t going to be sniping trainees today. Not unless he’d learned to be ambidextrous.

  ‘But what the hell is he doing here?’

  The answer was coming as the click and boot echoed out from that clawed megaphone.

  “Good morning Parasonic. It’s been too long.”

  His slightly buried German accent muddled by the jaw damage he’d sustained.

  ‘This guy really needs some reconstructive surgery.’

  “Your trainees are certainly looking like they will make fine heroes, though we were hoping to attract far bigger names to our little show. But oh well, what can you do? Schedules and more important things to do. The decadent do prefer to outsource don’t they? But you and your would-be heroes will do in the end. Now then if you don’t wish to have these innocent lives obliterated, this rather important vault blown open, and all the guilt and sorrow and yadda yadda, you get the idea. If you don’t want bad things to happen, send out one of your precious recruits. Any will do, and no you can’t sacrifice yourself. Though we both know you wouldn’t anyway. You have 5 minutes.”

  The dismissing echo stepped him back, but that vague gaze suddenly sharpened right to scope glint, his only eye finding Para despite the sliver even visible. Causing a shiver almost too small to notice. Through both him and Seth, as that eye found his as well.

  ‘This guy’s eye sight is way too good.’

  He pulled back as Para slowly turned his back to the bollard wall and folded his arms in thought. The trainees all looking to him, David and Razor seeming the most worried he was about to throw them into the sights of that mangled mad man.

  “Y-you’re not really gon-”

  “Shut up Butterknife! ...No, I’m not about to throw you to the wolves. Not without a plan anyway.”

  The trainees let out a few sighs of relief, but they still understood this wasn’t over. Para gritted his teeth at whatever he had just thought through, but Seth was sure it was about him. He pulled his finger to his ear piece again, putting him through to Kaz and Ohm.

  “You in position to clear those hostages?”

  Kaz was the only one to respond.

  “We are close. Ohm believes he can scramble the charges while I can take care of the guards. But we will need a diversion.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Sit tight and act when it happens, if you can’t deactivate them… Just get as many people out as you can.”

  “…Sir!”

  Para lowered his finger, a dark look drawn over his face. Even he didn’t like the idea of sacrificing the few for the many. Least of all when they don’t get to choose. It was already clear he despised self-sacrifice in unwinnable situations, but this was unpalatable by every standard. And yet there was an air of opposing tension. Kabar, Marco… both looked like they were psyching themselves up for something stupid. Razor was getting too close for comfort to the same. David was outright staring toward the gap, frozen but way too focused. Everyone else just lost in thought or too scared to even think of going out there.

  Of skipping that don’t be a hero crap. It was the whole reason they were here in the first place. Damn near the only reason to ever choose to be here. But what was awaiting them wasn’t some desperate save, some grand moment to break through. It was death. For those unprepared. So…

  Seth was willing to make a counter offer.

  Over the silence and the psych and stupid ideas came the metallic foot falls of the only one ready to take this heat. Of the only one who deserved to face this all down headed straight for that opening. Para looked up, a hostile sneer across his face almost signaling he knew he was spying, but some buried deep relief came free in spite.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Seth stopped short of clearing the wall, opened his helmet, and challenged him to stop what was so clearly wanted.

  “You and I both know no one else is going to be able to stand up to that kind of firepower.”

  “And what if that suit of yours isn’t what it’s cracked up to be? What then? What happens to the hostages when they ask for a better sacrifice? I’m not letting you go out there to fight and die like a damned idiot.”

  “Who said anything about fighting? You said I wasn’t allowed in combat, well it’s not really combat if it’s only ever one sided. And besides… All you ever want us to do is hold the line. So that’s what I’ll do.”

  With that Seth slammed his helmet closed and continued on, an aggravated Para holding himself back. But a second to cool allowed him clarity to address those who were intercepted and outpaced. Those unready to lay down their lives just yet.

  “Watch this closely, you’ll need to understand the limitations powersuits have if you ever want to fight one on even ground.”

  Seth chuckled sharply as he came into view of the bank’s fa?ade, and the three modified suits that took up firing positions across it. The cannon wielding security suit had retaken a firing stance, but held their fire as they tracked him across the field. The refurbished military suit popped their empty mag off and jammed their arm into one of the many… many boxes of pre aligned ordinance stacked up at their feet. A fresh full ring mag around their arm and racked automatically. Lastly came the…

  ‘Well that just confirms it! These fuckers raided United Armors! Or were they just the only fucking customers we had left?! Really hoping Terrance didn’t start selling to villains after I quit.’

  The construction suit that had needed long overdue maintenance stood at the far right side. Modified heavily sure, but it was definitely the one Seth passed over. The caution yellow and black checkered paint job visible under added armor plates that were bolted to the originally empty frame. Twin fifty caliber machineguns mounted over its shoulders, independent to its heavy lifter clamp arms.

  ‘Well… at least that one is finally being conservative. That suit was pushed to its limits before and now they’re barely twin firing those guns.’

  Seth stomped out into the field letting this perverted past see what it had led to. Stepped over the fallen bollard fortification, the deep craters from the cannon striking it showing just how devastating it could be. A metal coat of smashed titanium and lead cratering a few inches deep, yet splattered a yard wide. The inner rebar exposed and charred. But this didn’t faze him, he kept walking.

  Stepping out all the way in front of the smashed together car earthworks that had shielded the officers. Piles of metal bent, blasted, and melted into indistinguishable forms by innumerable explosions and kinetic obliteration. Almost seeming made on purpose rather than incidentally. A baited trap to see who was brave enough to come try.

  Well it certainly worked.

  Seth turned, stared down his old life with a little too much poignancy. Changed from what he could have felt pride over to perversions, into weapons of… whatever the fuck Tango was doing this for.

  ‘What the hell is this even about? Revenge? Seems a little too suicidal with that much explosives around him.’

  More answers hopefully oncoming as Tango stepped out from behind the military suit, detonator in his only good hand again, megaphone mic grasped in his other. And a dismissive look disfiguring the already disfigured.

  “Soooo… you’re the one Para thinks the least of.”

  ‘Okay, too right, move the hell on!’

  “I honestly expected some underachieving ruffian who would at least try their hardest and dig deep and surprise us. You know, some stupid cliché. But you… Oh I know full well he HATES you.”

  Seth was starting to feel called out now.

  “I mean what is it, 3 months into your ‘semester’? You made it so far in without powers of your own. He must really want you out. And, hey we’ll do it, but it’s hard to say it will really be worth it.”

  Seth was really getting ticked off now.

  “But oh well, deals are deals after all… I said the League would lose something of theirs in the end.”

  ‘Huh?’

  “You can blow this undeserving trash away now.”

  *CRACK*

  “The fuck did you just say?”

  Seth’s head turned hard on its axis, the slight glow once smoldering now made plasma glare. To flinch this aged menace in turn, hesitate him half way into his turn away. As the world slowed down a speed. Not. Theirs.

  Unable to do anything, as the security cannon braced, as his own trained reflexes were utterly outpaced. As words scrambled out of his chosen conveyance. And rippled his senses in oppressive clairvoyance.

  To what awaited their regret.

  The mismatched cannon rocked back in flash encased, propellant charge forced to scream for the only path emplaced. The shell spinning out into the light, depressed fins coming free in a shower of fire bright. Massive charge and staggered boosters blaring, throwing fat shell hard to locked on bearing. Through cloud discharged, haloed and freed, accelerating abhorrent to unrivaled speed. As it traveled the distance of parking lot and entrance way, to the opening intersection in the space of-

  *SSSHHHKKKEEEEeeeennngggg*

  Of here to stay.

  All that hyped up speed coming to a screeching halt, metal spalling and ripping itself to a sputtered caught. Right in the suit’s outstretched hand, into a world of velocity buckled down to naught.

  As the world was shot back up to speed, as all that halted force kicked the air. The boosters dying out in pitiful fashion, the inert kinetic round wasted of all its potential. Being tossed aside into the asphalt, stabbing the torn apart core down like a military grade lawn dart, hallowed base echoing a whistly clang.

  Tango allowed his full turn back around, Para’s widened glaring from the bollard doorway, the trainees wincing in the overpressure delay, and the suited minions recoiling at the sudden invalidation. As all watched Seth stare back with plasma in his good eye, and a stance practically yelling-

  “Come on and try!”

  But the moment intimidating broke down to crunch, as the construction suit slammed its hesitant lifter claws shut. A slight chuckle rising to an unhinged laugh coming from the apparent woman inside. Till the laughter hit peak and slammed the clamps down, switching over to rather concerning screaming.

  “YOU…!!! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!!! Why…Why?! Aren’t! You! DEAD!!!”

  Both machineguns racked aimed and fired, with complete disregard of any semblance of former moderation. A surge of power spread and hardening the suit in more totality, but Seth didn’t move as the shower of bullets and crazed ire washed over him. Rounds ricocheting off plates, force thoroughly dissipated to the point where he felt little more than slight plinks. Like someone was just throwing handfuls of pebbles at him.

  ‘I am really appreciating this gel layer. How’s the armor holding though?’

  Speaker and the control room were monitoring every impact in real time, heat mapping the stresses imparted on the suit, waiting to guide him to redirect power to any damage sustained.

  “This suit was designed for far worse than your people’s conventional firearms. That cannon might push us around if you are not careful, but this one may as well not have shown up at all.”

  The shower eventually stopping as the constructor finally saw she was having no effect, gun barrels smoking and glowing from the heat. Though it was obviously degrading her further, practically devolving to growling frustrations. Turning even Tango toward her, trying to reign her in.

  “Sasha, remember your breathing exercises!!”

  “RRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

  But she wasn’t there anymore.

  Smashing what was left of the bank’s fa?ade to cinder tagalongs, ripping free of her prepared position and charging into the parking lot. Clamps slapping away car wrecks and smoking remains of decorative shrubbery. With a clear lane and will to pick up speed that really shouldn’t be possible for a construction model. The back mounted motor assembly strained as she berserker rushed toward him, closed lifter raised high and pointed dead to spear through his chest. Seth kept his promised position, though he was really starting to feel worried about this woman.

  She reached regardless, just as her motors reached their audible maximum, rev and whir disintegrating to violent clanks. All as she launched her drawn out clamp stab. The heavy tungsten clamp slammed into the chest plate, screaming just as high as her war cry, flashing sparks and friction to fleeting life. But still receiving no give as her foot cut in the other half of her momentum.

  She whipped up to see her effects, only finding paint transfer across plate. Roaring again and pulling her other clamp up to stab Seth in the side. But just clanged off the articulating armor and recoiled out of her footing. She realigned, readying both her arms to just tear at him wildly. Loosing a combo of reckless abandon. The metals clanging to her incongruous beat, spalling and sparking to fleeting dots of fire. And screeching her fury louder than what thought was left to her. But the reality still dawned, her clamps were the ones calling for help, the only ones weathered by this torrential assault.

  She scraped across one last time before rearing back again, pulling her bare and bent clamps back, screeching them open as best they still could. So she could force them forward, over and under Seth’s unmoved arms. Clamping them down as hard as they could clamp, the claw motors screamed their limit as she pressed them for every bit of juice they had, and lifted him up. Holding Seth by the under arm like he was a toddler needing to be brought to level. The lifter motor begged for mercy. It was built to handle this kind of weight, but not after everything else it had been put through. The mad woman didn’t care, she roared over the suit’s complaints and realigned the guns take make her wrath clear. Except this wasn’t point blank, this was danger close. Yet still she let loose, lets guns scream staccato full bore to allow no more this slighting existence.

  The battlefield turned to a near constant and bland firework display, gun barrels glowing red hot as their works of friction burned the air to shattering nova. The rounds ricocheted in every direction, ducking all away from their view of this show. But only finding their marks back at their shooter. Her suit taking hit after hit, joints torn apart, added plates bent and buckling, and slap dash brackets obliterating.

  The guns falling silent as they chewed themselves apart, falling broken to the suits sides no longer mounted to anything but slag. Next the suit gave out, knees buckled as servos shattered and motors coughed their deaths. Arms falling down powerless, letting Seth slam back down as the constructor lurch to her knees. The added plates falling away as her suit slumped forward, most too bent and chewed through to even be called armor.

  The face covering finally falling away revealing the woman underneath. Bloodshot red eyes glaring fatigue and hate up at Seth’s still unblemished carapace. But the real kicker was her hair, all none of it. Shaved away for what looked like medical reasons. A large scarred patch of skin present on her scalp, along with stitches nearly the whole way back. Some kind of surgery that didn’t seem to have put her back together right.

  ‘Fucking hell! Please tell me Tango isn’t lobotomizing his fucking minions!’

  She growled at the hesitant look down, struggling with her brake down, unable to move anything but her head as even the roll cage hinges were caved in.

  ‘*sigh* Well at least she’s contained now.’

  Realizing she was in the way though, Seth finally moved. Grabbing and picking her up by the caging frame of the torso, moving her over behind the police car where there was obviously effective cover. A few concerning attempts to bite at him the only worry. Tango and his other suited minions all holding off their attacks as he cleared the field of collateral damage.

  ‘Guess they have some amount of comradery.’

  Tango’s surprise seemed to have worn off, the smug sadist coming back to the surface as he pulled the megaphone back up and Seth returned to his spot.

  “Sorry about her, we all cope with our personal damages in our own ways. The rest of us at least deal with our frustrations a little more… constructively. Speaking of which.”

  Tango dropped the microphone completely and turned to his two minions.

  “KILL HIM!!!”

  Wasting no time the military suit shot up its factory new grenade launcher arm and thunked out four shots in quick succession. While the relatively lazy shells flew away, the cannon wielder braced to fire again. The shells lit up under a renewing plasma glare, small electric fuses counting down to their destruction. With one hand out, Seth batted the first away, focus spreading in flash coopting of fuses. The next two received the same slap treatment, both falling to either side, tumbling and bouncing to a stop on the asphalt. The last one though, he just caught and twirled about to inspect with all the worry of a man not holding a tube of high explosive shrapnel next to his face.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Looking at it though, as everyone else waited for them to explode, he confirmed these were in fact factory new. No sand or dust scuffing. Barely any finger prints on them. They even still had serial numbers.

  ‘Sheesh. So unprofessional.’ “You guys should really learn about your equipment before using it!”

  Seth flipped the grenade up to them vaguely, a small turn ring on the nose with the settings timer and impact abbreviated on it. Which he turned to impact.

  “For instance! You left the timers on!!”

  He tossed it over to the side with the rest of the shells, letting it hit the asphalt as all the timers were allowed continue. Though only one was given the chance. Synchronistic sympathetic detonations, shrapnel spraying over the battlefield from both sides. Plinking useless off his suit and scaring the trainees into deeper cover. The military suit hesitating and looking down at their launcher, looking for an external setting no doubt. The cannon wielder stopped in their ticked off brace, holding their fire proven interceptable. And Tango looking down to the boxes around the both of them, taking up a magazine from an open one and looking it over, before shoving against the military suit in apparent frustration. Seth couldn’t hear, but it sure seemed clear that he was cracking.

  Though the mismatched military appeared to finally find the setting, clicking a small inset dial just off their wrist, and immediately firing off a grenade into a surviving parking spot–

  *BOOOM*

  And received an instant explosion of fire and asphalt in return.

  “There you go! Now you ca- SHIT!!”

  They immediately retrained on Seth and fired every grenade they had left in their mag. Seth hardened up, bringing both his arms up to block as the shells flew in. The first round struck his arm, pressure wave washing over the suit followed by the heat of the explosion. He was rattled and a little warm, but the ceramics and gel layer absorbed the worst of the shock. The metal just taking the heat wholesale.

  The Garkah compensated for the second incoming as it tumbled off course and into Seth’s face. Pressure and heat in equal measure, a bit force on his neck but tolerable. The rest scattering as explosion after explosion shook the battlefield. Some missed entirely, striking the asphalt or the metallic earthworks behind him. Most struck home though, and it wasn’t without threat. Speaker raised the obvious alarm first.

  “External temperature is rising, if the integrity drops too low we cannot defend against that-”

  *KHKHKHKHKHOOOOOOooooooo*

  Too late.

  The clouds of smoke and shrapnel parted as a kinetic round came buzzing in for its so awaited cover. As Seth had no time, just as they planned, but to defend harder and hope. The round hit square in his guard, but that didn’t matter. The force threw his arm back at him, scrunched his joints near to popping, pressed him back as metal gave what it could. As all that force denied excess weight.

  Nearly a ton of metal and man blasted of their feet to the sound of a resounding flower of sparks. Shot backwards at the shooter’s angle into the far corner pocket. A charred chunk of police car coming with as he ricocheted off and tumbled horrific. As lifelessly as inertia could deem, into the corner of this blasted intersection.

  The trainees could only watch on as he flew past, rolling and clanging like a discarded toy. Para glaring more disappointed than smug, as his ‘least desirable’ trainee came to a limp stop. All that strength and fury denied. All that bravado and defiance crumpled. Arm plates still smoking from impact.

  An… An impact that should have shattered that armor like glass but...

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me!!”

  Para’s expression changed to one of unrepentant frustration, washing over and only exacerbated as Seth pulled his practically unblemished arms up to pick himself up off the ground. Clanging beaten and burned asphalt for purchase. Stumbling to a knee, shaking off the multiple g’s he just got smacked around by.

  “How’s that for tensile strength!!!”

  ‘Huggh! Fuck! And thank you god for this gel layer!!’

  “Thank your god on your own time, we still have hostiles wanting you dead!”

  Speaker piped up over Matterist’s beaming pride and Seth sucking air in to refill his empty lungs. The armor held wonderfully, the round did not. It smooshed against the plates, spalling to super-heated shards off the outer layer, but transferring every Newton it had into the suit before disintegrating into hyper velocity sparks. The ferroceramics shattering as designed, eating a good chunk of kinetic energy like a hardened sponge. Leaving just a bulge of gel to smack Seth for real, bruising but leaving him none worse for very clear wear.

  He stood shakily back up, still trying to catch a full breath. Still trying to find the license plate of the semi-truck that just hit him. One final shake brought the world back into focus, back up to the fight shaping up in what all was crashing over him.

  See and feeling the less stunned more annoyed Tango scowling in the new distance. Starting to complain aloud, ranting and raving across too much space. But only realizing as he angrily swapped hands and scooped up the dropped megaphone that-

  “What the hell does it take to kill you?!? Seriously, this is starting to piss me off!! And you know what happens when I’m pissed off?!”

  He raised the detonator up in his partial hand. Most of the trainees froze, a few made half a movement from their vantage points before Para pulled out of his cover in some vain hope of stopping him. The suited minions looked on, mixed fear and content on their helmeted fasces. As Tango flipped the detonator over with what few fingers he had. And pointed it button down.

  “People Die!!!”

  Stabbing with the world enveloped malicious onto the military suit next to him.

  “YEHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA!!!”

  Megalomaniacal laugh swallowing all whole, as if he’d felt a victory long overdue. Even if it was gloriously pyrrhic. Everyone was stopped, crumpling, bracing for cover, as he laughed harder and harder. Reveling in this triumph like there was really no hope to win either way…

  Laughing…

  For a little too long given the situation.

  His victorious bravado getting weighed down, twisted smile faltering, before he finally realized he was still alive. No fiery explosion, no ceased existence, still the same shattered apart facade he’d created. Still the same broken body he no doubt reviled. He looked over at the detonator, stabbing it again into the military suit before throwing the megaphone down and passing it over to his good hand. He smashed the button several times in distant fury before stopping and spinning around. Seth couldn’t see what he saw, but he could only imagine it was just empty disarmed bomb vests laying on the floor of the bank. He had no hostages, no leverage. And honestly, despite the promise, he’d pissed off a super that had been waiting for this moment.

  ‘My turn!’

  A heavy metal foot cracked an echo through the battlefield, one defying the line to hold, but too fucking rearing to care anymore! The asphalt blasted apart as Seth rocketed across the intersection, tearing passed trainees, passed Para, passed the still self-containing constructor as a blur of silver and azure righteousness. Each step chewing road to gravel, propelling him faster and faster. As he crossed into the parking lot and broke the other suits from their cathartic blue balling. Tango turning with an exceptional expression, of pure horror at the beast he’d riled. Who had denied him even this victory. He didn’t even have to give the order, his minions immediately trained every weapon they had at what now came for them.

  The military suit fired a wide burst of grenades before leveling and racking its harpoon spike. The grenades bracketed Seth in shrapnel and fire, trying to leave him only one route to take as the harpoon shot down it. Tungsten chain clinking too fast to be discernible as its own charge fired. But was always going to be too slow.

  Seth didn’t even flinch, just ducked low under the harpoon as the booms kicked his unfazed suit. A foot angled hard and kicked off, flipping him over to catch the chain in a dragged over hand. His lower body catching up with the turn, touched down and planted his other foot, as he slid his hands as far up as he could and waited for the one sound he needed.

  *KAngggg*

  The end of that chain coming due.

  He clamped hard, cracked the pavement at the same moment he pulled that chain. Momentum doubled, reversed, made catastrophic, as the refurbished suit was pulled right off their feet. Another ton of metal and motor ripped completely out of the cover of the bank fa?ade, right to the dismay of Tango still stood next to it. They crashed into the parking lot, rebounding and skidding as-

  *KHKHKHKHOOOOOooooo*

  As Seth flashed down below another buzzing cannon shot. Sent streaking over before its velocity could reach its peak, another wasted round smashing into refusing bollard wall. A quick flashed glare of plasma the only retaliation. Because-

  ‘That’s enough out of you!’

  Seth kept his low, bounding off skimmed ground like a low set lizard. Following that falling slack chain, keeping his arms at his sides and out of the way. The military suit put their hands down hard to push up and level the grenade launcher from on their knees, but was far too slow on the uptick.

  A short hop and a loaded full metal foot bowled into them, inertia pushing both over to gravity's will. And then the foot split, metal talons digging into the chest plate, keeping it in place as both of them fell with the momentum. So that then, and only then, did Seth stamp his mark.

  The suit piledriven down as its legs came free from under them, the asphalt cratering and aerosolizing under undue force. But oh so much want to make them pay ruining his works. Coming down on their chest off the recoil, staring straight into the camouflaged faceplate. Seeing nothing but a fool trying to suck his crushed out breath. And yet instead fill with a deep seated fear.

  “No… NO NONO NO NO!!!”

  He panicked like a cornered animal, desperate to bring his weapon arms up to get whatever he was thinking Seth was away. But they were stopped short, clawed gauntlets lurching down and digging into the factory new metal one after the other.

  “NO! NO!! YOU’RE ALL DEAD!!!”

  Seth pressed down with his foot, pulled himself back up tall, and wrenched these stolen arms up. Callously intent on pulling these perverted refurbishments apart. Bolts snapping, connectors shearing, and servos crushed as the relatively weak metal gave way to brute force. But more than the suit arms came with. Connectors and deeper artificial joints tore away as…

  As the pilot’s arms came off as well.

  His prosthetics at least. Their head falling back, fear addled gaze lost and passed out from shock. As bits of sheered machinery rained beside him. The moment of menacing want falling to regret, Seth feeling a little bad as the second set of arms fell free from the orange armored ones.

  ‘Well shit. Why do I feel like that wasn’t the first time his arms have been ripped off like this?’

  Shrugging he tossed the hollow arms aside, letting them ring their weight and knowing he was covered from the doubtlessly disturbed glares of the trainees. And from that security cannon. As the kicked up dust and asphalt came back down to Earth, Seth retracted his splay, looking over at his offhand handy work. The security suit struggling to move, each attempt eliciting a pained screech from the servos that he’d repaired long ago.

  “Heh… You should really get those bearings looked at!! I don’t think they were rated for anti-tank duty!!”

  Him knowing full well he’d stretched his focus out and demagnetized them, leaving them back in the poor state they were before. Except now they had wear from both suit movement and the cannon firing to deal with. Locking their movements down to screaming grunting inches as their hips and shoulders refused to move.

  In a last ditch attempt to get their gun aimed, the security suit forced their arm up to the barrel. Muscle power deciding to aim it manually. The suit wailing as the gunner poured all their effort in, forced their grip over the barrel and pushed it toward Seth’s position. But he was already gone from it, and already walking up to the gunner’s position across the parking lot. In the opposite direction the gunner had just pushed all the strength in.

  They could only watch as he strode up to them through what was left of the topiary outside the bank, side stepping crushed and obliterated shrubbery. With one final almighty pull back, the gunner scraped back toward him.

  *ting*

  Until he put an armored hand up and stopped the barrel dead. The gunner growled as he tried to push against what was so very out of his league, succeeding in nothing but glaring passed the clear view ports in his face plate.

  “The fucking hell are you?”

  His gruff, basically gravel laden voice etched away at him as best it could.

  “No fucking driver could do the things you did… Take the fucking hits you did and live. So what kind of super wears a powersuit!?”

  Seth lost what levity he had regained walking over here, but stayed a displeased look.

  “What? Your power not good enough or something? Welcome to the club. And hey, here’s to the League…”

  Suddenly those terribly seated brackets popped, quick release charges blowing that cannon free and leaving Seth holding the poorly balanced bag. While the gunner’s armored hand reconfigured and split into an arcing prong. A shock inducer. And stabbed vengeful at thee for-

  “FOR FUCKING US ALL OVER!!!”

  The inducer prongs made contact and discharged a full batteries charge into Seth’s suit. Arcs of loose electricity scattered over the chest plate and dimming everything else out from the bright plasma burn. The inducer’s charge held up for all the juice left at its disposal, a few seconds of overbright defiance before dying out and shutting off. Draining every ounce of power their suit had left. The gunner could only watch the ozone and fried asphalt dust clear from his own handy work. A bit of vindictive pride rising through the heat, before it reeled back in as best it could. As Seth looked down at the melted shock inducer then back up at the gunner, completely unfazed by the ‘attack’.

  “Huh. I thought they got rid of my heavy stun gun idea. Though it still looks like they messed up the heat tolerance tests again. And didn’t bother giving it a separate battery. I mean what’s even the point of a weapon that can only fire once?”

  Seth chuckled in reminiscence as brought his non cannon-holding hand up to the gunner’s face plate and pushed with a finger, causing him to crash back to the thinly carpeted bank floor, completely unable to move and too defeated to even try. He stepped over the windowsill the gunner had been in position in, finally stepping into the bank proper. Mostly shattered and crushed tills and a lot of stacked boxes. Like way too many stacked boxes. That all had United’s name on them.

  ‘Humph. Fucking thieves.’

  Though he still held on to the cannon, turning it over in his hands. A triple thick barrel the only way it could handle the obscene charge used in those shells. The receiver equally proportioned, if not heavier, though the added feeding rail wasn’t helping.

  ‘It’s not a bad platform, it’s just a little…’

  “Primitive?”

  Speaker was trying to be facetious again.

  ‘Eh… Okay fine yeah primitive. But when you’re basically using ammo that fires itself you don’t really need much complexity.’

  Seth tossed the cannon out the shattered bank fa?ade, crushing an already devastated car, and finally regarded Tango, who seemed to be desperately rummaging through one of the grenade boxes. One of the thirty surrounding him.

  ‘That can’t be good.’

  Seth stomped closer, seeing the rest of the trainees out of the corner of his eye, as they followed behind an aggressively walking Para to the bank’s entrance. He saw Ohm and Kaz come in from the back room and join the advance. Everyone converging on the finally overmatched villain as he seemed to feel all the eyes on him now. But still wheeling around vicious with several grenades freed of their ring mags. Para halted the trainees, Seth stopping as well as Tango held aloft one in his broken hand. With its dial set to impact.

  “That’s right! One wrong step and I drop this! I know damn well you don’t have anyone fast enough in your little class, so none of you have a hope in hell to catch it! And when it drops.”

  Seth looked down at the still packed boxes of grenade mags, remembering the boxes of shells stacked up in the position behind him.

  “We all go boom.”

  Para stepped closer to get his attention.

  “It’s over Tango!! You lost!! Just give up this stupid suicidal revenge plot and stand down!!”

  “Or what!! What do I even have left to lose? What kind of sniper can’t hold a gun anymore?! Can’t sight a rifle without constantly reliving all the SHIT you people put me through!? Tell me…! Heh… Tell me what you lost to the laceroids again?”

  ‘Wait, why the hell would…?’

  Tango looked over the trainees and Seth as they looked at him with cautious puzzled looks.

  “Oh… Oh Para. You didn’t tell them about the Penal Units did you? You poor children.”

  “It wasn’t relevant to their training.”

  “My pain wasn’t relevant?! The pain of all these ‘reformed villains’ wasn’t relevant?!! These men and women of oh so questionable morals, promised freedom and praise for their service protecting the world, only to be thrown away like TRASH when they ended up surviving with maimed bodies and frayed minds!! You poor ignorant children probably thought those ‘distraction forces’ were heroes. No… no no no… They were villains. Convicts. The undesirables sent to their deaths! Never to be seen again!!”

  Tango spread his arms out, the grenade slipping in his grip to the dismay of everyone in attendance.

  “Well here we are!! Still languishing in the obscurity and anguish the League left us in!! Still treated as pariah!! Still ignored by the world as nothing but a justified cost to our crimes!! Well not. Any! MORE!!!”

  Suddenly Tango reared back, intent on spiking the grenade down and blowing the bank, the trainees, the everyone, and everything he could straight to hell along with him! His hand shooting down as everyone in attendance recoiled, desperate to get away. Maya was half way done with an impromptu asphalt wall. Cleo formed straps all around him, but that wasn’t fast enough. Ohm launching himself full bore in from the back room, but he wasn’t fast enough. Para charging up an attack, but not even he was fast enough. As Seth moved to react, to kill the fuse, to do anything…

  But quickly stopped in his own rising speed. Not because it was fruitless to try.

  But because Tango’s hand was empty.

  He spiked his hand down before anyone seemed to know. Only realizing it as he stared at his empty broken hand with a compounding and almost justified anger at being stopped.

  Again!

  And slowly, caustically, he turned to see. His pyrrhic end floating in the air.

  In a cloud of reddish smoke.

  Alex!

  She formed back up, clutching the grenade away, a slight look of sadness in her noncorporeal and copied cloudy eyes. Tango looked at her with the fury of a thousand suns burning in his only eye, as Cleo’s straps found their speed and started wrapping around him. Ohm speeding past Alex, scooping up the grenade in Tango’s other hand and pushing away the rest of the mags. Para killed his attack, Maya stopped forming her wall. And Seth breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Fucking hell! I don’t need that kinda suspense!’

  As Cleo slowly mummified Tango in straps though, he looked back over. Back at Seth. That justifiable intent in his eye burning at him as his face was covered up. Seth met it, almost dutifully as the one who chiefly caused its flare. And to accept the realities presented before him.

  ‘I guess Aegis was right… the League is not what it used to be.’

  Sighs, breaths, tensions allowed slack. Everything dropping back to as beaten as the landscape. The villains defeated, still locked in their suits or… mummified. The scene gradually being cleared for the police to do their sweeps. The hostages sat on the road outside the bollards getting checked and comforted, most set up with rides home since there was nothing even resembling a car left in the parking lot anymore. Those bollards slowly lowering, the ones that were still attached anyway. Heavy clearing and repair teams rolling in to fix up the damage. Specialized supers, straight up superhuman strength, and the odd crane and dump truck to carry all the debris away. A swath of bomb squads taking custody of the ordinance, delaying reconstruction just so this would be the extent. And finally heavy corrections units given custody of the villains.

  Seth stayed a place amid the clearly prearranged choreography. Watching the now suitless villains be led or wheeled away. The full extent of the scars now plain for all to see.

  The mad constructor looked like she had been chewed on over one side of her body, in addition to the clear head wound. The military suit pilot, besides losing both arms, seemed to be having a severe panic attack. A very heavily regretted PTSD episode on Seth’s part. The security gunner had a serious scar on his throat and chest, as well as a prosthetic leg. Only leaving Tango, locked down in a safety chair since he qualified as a super villain. Seth was never going to forget the hateful stare he was giving to him as he passed by on his way into the paddy wagon.

  But he couldn’t help remember something as well. A town he’d crossed during the crisis, the one fortified and set up to funnel the laceroids into a sniper’s killbox. The one doubtfully still bloodied and ornamented with a crushed and torn rifle. He couldn’t help imagine it was Tango’s, couldn’t help tack on a little more guilt to his ever expanding total. But this felt… closer… to being repaid.

  ‘I wonder if Garkah healing works on other people.’

  “There is no reason for it not to.”

  Speaker piped up, seeming already having run the theory through his medical experts.

  “It is all just a matter of power and control. You would certainly need to-”

  *clang*

  Seth snapped out of his internal conversation as a piece of rubble bounced off the side of his helmet. Maya threw it, and judging from the fact that the other trainees were funneling into the UTAH it was time to leave.

  “Come on Tinman!! No more daydreaming!!”

  Seth took one last look around at the once walled battlefield, before turning back to catch up with the UTAH before it rumbled away.

  Para was the last to get on, hanging off the step and dead eyeing him as it started up. But despite the obviously laden glare, he didn’t yell at him about breaking his promise. So Seth took the glare and hurried along. It’s been a long enough morning anyway.

  As he retraversed the city back to the Hill, Seth took a moment to check with the Garkah.

  ‘Almost forgot to ask. Did you get what we needed?’

  Speaker and the one he’d named Weaver were waiting for him to remember.

  “Yes, we were able to draw enough power from the city on the way here, and those suits gave us a little extra to play with. You should be able to manage everything else with our esteemed Weaver’s help. She is a master after all.”

  ‘Let her sing her own praises Speaker. You’re stifling.’

  Speaker seemed irked by that, but relented. Weaver had always kept herself rather closed off from everyone, despite being in a literal collective. But she was working on being more confident, managing to even pass along a bit of pride.

  “It... will be fun. To teach you my art.”

  ‘And it will be an honor to learn from you.’

  Okay now Seth was being facetious. He let the attention go as he drew near the Hill, keeping low on the coping rails so he didn’t have to explain why the concrete in the front plaza was busted. He landed in the run up to the stairs, slowing his momentum as the UTAH rumbled passed on the access street. His own air of pride finding its way out. He’d finally done some good, used this power for good. And…

  ‘Just a week left. Just one week till even Para can’t deny me any longer. I’m ready for this. There’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.’

  “Are you out of your godsdamned mind Para!?! Did you think I wasn’t going to screen your fucking requests!?!”

  “Honestly, I was expecting it. Means I don't have track you down to get your input.”

  “You… What is with you and this kid!? You've pushed it beyond reason already! Now you’re going to get people killed!”

  “Only if you and the others have been using Berta just for show.”

  “You can’t bank on us being able to…! You already told them didn’t?”

  “The second I got back. They may not know or care about everything, but they understand what’s at stake. Either he’s hiding something or hiding nothing. And both are intolerable with how much he’s done. So that shell needs to be cracked open.”

  “You’re a fucking psychopath. You’re going to kill this poor kid just because you can’t stand that he sucker punched you.”

  “It’s not about that damn sucker punch!!!

  "…It’s about what I felt after it. You and I both know that numbness. What it felt like to have that dust coat your skin and take away everything!

  "It felt… exactly… like it.

  "So you tell me what that makes him! That there's a better way to draw back out the thing he is it than to give it another shove!”

  ...

  “And if he… If he wins? What then?”

  “Then we will have to truly see what the hell he is. For ourselves.”