He slammed his palm into the floor with devastating force. The impact point glowed white-hot for an instant before the entire chamber trembled. Massive metal spikes erupted from the ground in a radiating pattern, each one as thick as a human torso and sharp enough to pierce reinforced steel. The spikes shot upward with freight-train force, threatening to impale anything in their path.
Michael barely managed to take flight, his wings propelling him above the deadly forest of metal. James, despite his injuries, rolled away with enhanced speed, narrowly avoiding impalement.
Seizing the momentary advantage, Michael hurled the Shimobe Blade like a javelin, the weapon spinning through the air wreathed in crimson flames. Steel raised a hand casually, his fingers elongating into metal tendrils that wrapped around the blade, stopping its rotation instantly. With a contemptuous flick, he sent the katana embedding into the floor, its flames extinguishing upon impact.
Before Michael could react, Steel launched himself into the air with explosive force, crossing the distance between them in a heartbeat. His fist, now transformed into a massive warhammer, connected with Michael's chest in a thunderous impact that sent the vigilante plummeting downward. Michael crashed through the metal floor, creating a crater upon impact as blood erupted from his mouth.
Steel descended with the inexorability of a meteor, both feet transforming into spiked pistons as he landed directly on Michael's prone form. The impact was catastrophic---metal flooring shattered for meters around them, and Michael's scream of agony echoed throughout the entire structure.
"Is this truly the best the 'Angels of Justice' can offer?" Steel taunted, grinding his transformed foot deeper into Michael's chest.
A blue flash from the periphery caught Steel's attention a moment too late. James had channeled impossible amounts of energy into his left gauntlet, pushing it far beyond its design limitations.
"DIVINE FIST!" James roared, his voice raw with pain and determination.
The gauntlet glowed with such intensity that it began to disintegrate around his arm. As James's fist connected with Steel's torso, the overloaded weapon detonated in a cataclysmic explosion of blue energy. The blast sent Steel careening across the chamber, crashing through multiple support columns before embedding into the far wall.
For the first time, Steel's perfect form showed significant damage---a gaping hole in his torso revealed complex machinery and pulsing energy cores within his metallic shell. Silvery fluid that might have been blood leaked from the wound, pooling on the floor beneath him.
James stood swaying, his left arm ending in a mangled, smoking ruin just below the elbow. Blood poured from the catastrophic injury, but his face showed only grim determination.
"James, your arm," Michael gasped, struggling to rise from the crater.
"Ignore it," James replied, his voice unnaturally steady despite the shock that should have rendered him unconscious.
Across the chamber, Steel extracted himself from the wall, his metallic body already beginning to repair the devastating damage. His mercury eyes narrowed as he raised both arms toward the ceiling.
"Enough games," he snarled.
The air above him shimmered, then materialized into hundreds---perhaps thousands---of metallic rods, each one hovering in perfect formation. With a simple gesture, Steel sent them hurtling toward Michael and James at supersonic speed.
Both warriors attempted to dodge, but the sheer number of projectiles made complete evasion impossible. Dozens of rods pierced their bodies, each one finding vulnerable points with surgical precision. Michael and James collapsed to their knees, blood streaming from multiple wounds as more and more rods impaled them.
Despite his injuries, James pushed himself back to his feet. Blood soaked his clothing and pooled beneath him, but his eyes burned with undiminished resolve.
"Hesitation is defeat," he whispered, words that sounded like a personal mantra.
With his remaining arm, he channeled the last reserves of his strength. His gauntlet began to glow once more, blue energy swirling around his trembling fist.
"DIVINE FIST!" James screamed, launching himself at Steel with reckless abandon.
The punch connected squarely with Steel's chest, directly over the wound that was still healing. The gauntlet detonated with even greater force than before, obliterating what remained of James's right arm and blasting a cavernous hole through Steel's torso. The explosion sent both combatants flying in opposite directions.
Steel recovered first, his wounds already beginning to close as liquid metal flowed to repair the damage. His face contorted with rage as he conjured a massive war hammer from his arm, the weapon easily twice the size of a normal human.
With blinding speed, he closed the distance to James, who lay defenseless on the floor. The hammer came down with apocalyptic force, crushing James's skull against the metal floor. Blood and more visceral matter splattered outward from the impact point.
Not satisfied with a single blow, Steel struck again and again, each impact causing the entire chamber to shake. When he finally stepped back, James's body was barely recognizable as human, pinned to the floor by four massive broadswords that Steel had conjured and driven through his limbs and torso.
Michael, bleeding from dozens of wounds, stretched out his hand toward the embedded Shimobe Blade. The katana trembled, then flew across the chamber, its hilt finding his palm as if guided by invisible hands.
"CRIMSON FLAMING SWORD," he intoned, his voice barely above a whisper.
The blade erupted with renewed flames, a desperate last stand against overwhelming odds. With strength born of sheer willpower, Michael lunged at Steel, aiming for the regenerating hole in his chest.
Steel sidestepped the attack with contemptuous ease, the blade passing harmlessly through the air where he had stood a millisecond before.
"CRIMSON THRUST!" Michael pivoted instantly, changing the direction of his attack and driving the Shimobe Blade directly into Steel's abdomen.
The blade penetrated Steel's metallic skin, causing him to momentarily stiffen. But then, impossibly, Steel's body flowed around the weapon, absorbing the blade deeper until Michael's hand was pressed against Steel's abdomen.
"Oh, sweet Michael Florescent," Steel said, his voice almost gentle. "You thought you could change the Undercity, but you never addressed your most fundamental flaw---your weakness."
Steel's hand shot out, closing around Michael's throat with inexorable pressure. He lifted the vigilante off the ground with one arm, Michael's feet dangling helplessly as Steel slowly, methodically began to crush his windpipe.
Without warning, Steel slammed Michael into the floor with catastrophic force, creating a crater that radiated cracks throughout the chamber. He lifted Michael's broken body again, only to smash him down once more. Again and again, he repeated the process, each impact more devastating than the last, until Michael's once-formidable frame went completely limp.
Steel released his grip, allowing Michael's body to crumple to the floor. He stood over his fallen adversary, contempt evident in his mercury eyes.
"I'm finished showing mercy to children playing at heroism," Steel declared coldly.
He extended his arm, the limb transforming into a gleaming sword of impossible sharpness. Without hesitation, he drove the blade through Michael's skull, the point emerging from the other side and embedding in the floor beneath. The Crimson Angel's body convulsed once, then went forever still.
Steel withdrew his weaponized limb, watching dispassionately as blood pooled around Michael's head. He turned away, already dismissing the fallen hero from his thoughts.
A sudden, blinding flash of white light froze him in place. The sheer energy signature made Steel whirl around, his sensors detecting a power surge that dwarfed anything he had previously registered.
An invisible force slammed into him with the power of a freight train, sending his metallic body crashing through the far wall. The impact left a perfect Steel-shaped impression in the reinforced material as he struggled to extract himself.
Through the settling dust and debris, Steel beheld a sight that sent the first genuine ripple of fear through his circuits.
Violet stood at the chamber's center, but she was transformed. Her platinum hair floated around her head as if underwater, each strand glowing with blinding white light. Her eyes had become twin novas of pure energy, so bright that looking directly at them was impossible. The air around her shimmered and distorted, reality itself bending in the presence of her unleashed power.
"Has she gone into Surge mode?" Steel whispered, genuine apprehension coloring his voice for the first time.