The subway junction had become a pressure cooker of elemental fury. The air smelled of ozone, burnt porcelain, and the metallic tang of blood.
The Circus Ends: Kaelen vs. The Clown
The Clown moved with a sickening, disjointed grace, its elongated fingers snapping like whips as it tried to thread through Kaelen's guard. It moved in a series of "glitches," appearing at different angles with a porcelain grin that never wavered.
Kaelen didn't even break a sweat. He stood in the center of the chaos, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. "You're loud," Kaelen muttered.
The Clown lunged, its fingers extending into razor-sharp needles aimed at Kaelen's eyes. Kaelen simply tilted his head. He didn't just dodge; he moved with the predatory economy of someone who had seen the sun. As the Clown's hand passed him, Kaelen's shoulder erupted in a burst of flames.
The Zethrian creature tried to retreat, but the fire didn't just burn—it hunted. Kaelen stepped forward, his movements a blur of effortless power. He caught the Clown's porcelain face in one hand.
"The show's over."
Kaelen closed his fist. A localized flame erupted from his palm. There was no scream, only the sound of ceramic shattering and meat vaporizing. When the light faded, Kaelen was standing in the same spot, his clothes unruffled, not a single bruise on his skin. He casually flicked a speck of ash off his sleeve.
On the other side of the junction, Carmora spun her monomolecular wires into a shimmering web of death. Jaxen stood still, his head bowed, lightning beginning to coil around his feet like golden serpents.
"You're too slow, little spark," Carmora hissed, flinging a dozen wires meant to mince Jaxen into cubes.
Jaxen's eyes snapped open, glowing with a blinding white light. He didn't dodge. He didn't move.
"Thunderclap: ."
In a single, frame-perfect motion, Jaxen snapped his fingers. A bolt of lightning, thin as a needle but dense as a collapsing star, punched through the center of the wire-web and slammed into Carmora's core. The impact didn't just shock her; it erased her. The Zethrian was turned into a silhouette of ash before she could even scream.
One attack. Total erasure. Jaxen exhaled a cloud of static and joined the line.
Magals watched his last two "children" vanish into smoke. He didn't look sad; he looked bored.
"Well," Magals rumbled. "At least the appetizer was quick. I hate waiting for the main course."
Kylo stepped forward, his golden eyes flickering as they scanned the room. "Don't get cocky, Magals. You're outnumbered by the best the Humans have to offer."
Kylo gestured, and the Aegis Prime moved into formation. Julian took the center, his hands glowing with purple gravity-wells. Seraphina manifested a dozen floating mirror shards that refracted the light into blinding lasers. Vance stood at the front, his Invincible Wall shimmering like a diamond shield. Elena Voss stood behind them, her eyes glowing as she fed tactical data and Zethrian weak points directly into their minds.
The 10th joined them. Elias took the point,Renji activated his Star Eyes, Rook raised his hands, and the rusted metal of the subway cars began to tear itself apart, forming a swarm of metallic blades around him. Mikasa summoned a massive, black-steel Zweihänder, and Nyx began to flicker in and out of reality.
"ATTACK!" Kylo roared.
The onslaught was a symphony of destruction. Rook launched the metal storm first, the jagged steel shrieking as it hit Magals' chest. The metal didn't hit him, it covered him, but the sheer volume of metal was so high it began to bury the Commander.
"NOW!" Mikasa leaped through the metal swarm, her massive blade glowing with a red aura. She swung with enough force to split a tank, while Renji appeared on the opposite side, his fists about to hit magals body.
Magals didn't dodge. He raised both hands. "Reverse."
The metal blades and Mikasa's sword were suddenly thrown back with triple the force. But before they could hit the 10th, Vance stepped in. His Invincible Wall took the impact, the "Reverse" energy washing over his shield like water over a rock.
"My turn," Kylo said. He pointed his finger at Magals. A burst of Fire—Kaelen's power—erupted from his hand, followed immediately by a bolt of Jaxen's Lightning.
Magals finally moved. He blurred at light speed, appearing behind the Aegis Prime. "Boring. You're just a mirror, boy."
Magals swung a spatial punch at Kylo's head, but Julian slammed his hands together. "Gravity Anchor: 200x!"
The floor beneath Magals suddenly increased in weight. The Commander's fist slowed down, the air becoming thick as molasses. This gave Seraphina the opening she needed. She tilted her mirrors, focusing the light into a single, concentrated beam of solar energy that burned through Magals' shoulder.
"Tch!" Magals hissed, his skin regenerating instantly. "Gravity? Interesting,"
Magals' aura shifted from violet to a deep, crushing black. He raised a hand toward the ceiling. "Law of Attraction: Planetary Weight."
The gravity in the subway junction didn't just increase; it shifted. The 10th and 1st were suddenly slammed toward the ceiling, their bones creaking under the sudden reversal of physics.
"Julian! Do it!" Elias shouted, using his boots to kick off the ceiling.
"I've got it!" Julian roared, his veins bulging in his neck. "Gravity Nullification: Zero Realm!"
The two gravity fields collided in the middle of the room, cancelling each other out. For a moment, everyone was weightless, floating in a cloud of dust and debris.
Nyx used the weightlessness to her advantage. She teleported a hundred times in a second, appearing as a blurred circle of silver around Magals. She wasn't trying to hit him; she was creating a vacuum.
"Mikasa! Rook! Elias! Hit him now!"
Rook compressed all the metal in the room into a single, dense sphere the size of a marble. Mikasa threw her sword like a spear, and Elias moved he's fist towards magals body.
The three attacks hit Magals simultaneously.
BOOM.
The junction exploded. The shockwave was so powerful it collapsed the upper subway tunnels, sending tons of earth raining down.
When the smoke cleared, Magals was still standing. His clothes were shredded, and he was bleeding from a dozen cuts, but his expression was no longer bored. It was hateful.
"You've had your fun," Magals said, his voice a low, vibrating growl. "But I can't lose to monkeys"
Magals appeared in front of Julian in a fraction of a nanosecond. Julian didn't even have time to blink before Magals' fist buried itself in his stomach.
Magals broke through Julian's internal gravity shields.
CRUNCH.
Julian's eyes went wide. Blood erupted from his mouth as he was launched through three reinforced concrete walls, his body leaving a trail of gore.
"JULIAN!" Seraphina screamed.
Magals didn't stop. He slammed both palms into the ground.
"You like gravity, little ants? Let me show you what it's like to live under a dying star."
"1000x Gravity."
The sound was horrifying. The 10th and the Aegis Prime were slammed into the floor. The concrete beneath them shattered, turning into a crater. Mira Ice and the 5th Division, already injured, let out muffled screams as their ribs began to crack under the weight.
"I... can't... move..." Jaxen gasped, his face pressed against the stone.
"Not... finished..." Elias gritted his teeth, h
Magals looked down at them, his eyes glowing like black suns. "1000x? No. Let's see if you can breathe at 5000x."
The world went black. The sound of air being squeezed out of the room was deafening. The floor didn't just crack; it pulverized into dust. The subway junction began to sink deeper into the earth, the pressure so intense that the air itself began to glow with thermal heat.
Elias felt his heart struggling to beat. The weight was like having a mountain placed on his spine. He looked over and saw he's teammates struggling again, it reminded him about magals first attack ,
Exactly how it happened.