A single heartbeat echoed through the ruins, its sound reverberating with impossible power. Steel's mercury eyes widened in disbelief as he sensed the impossible—Michael Florescent was alive.
Steel launched himself upward through the debris, rushing back to the last floor. There stood Michael—completely restored, without a single wound marring his body. Crimson energy pulsed around him in rhythmic waves, his eyes blazing with supernatural light as he gripped the Shimobe Blade with unwavering resolve.
"Your time on earth has come to an end, Steel," Michael's voice carried the weight of judgment itself, resonating with newfound strength bestowed by Violet's final gift.
Steel assessed his own condition clinically. Violet's onslaught had severely compromised his metal abilities, limiting his morphing capabilities and regeneration. His perfect form now bore countless scars and imperfections, mercury blood still seeping from wounds that refused to heal completely.
"Fine," Steel snarled, his damaged form coalescing into a combat stance. "Let's have one final fight."
Michael unfurled his biomechanical wings to their full crimson glory, each feather-blade humming with deadly purpose. He launched himself forward with explosive force, leaving a trail of crimson light in his wake. Steel met his charge head-on, his metallic body hurtling through the air like a silver bullet.
They collided at the chamber's center with cataclysmic impact. The Shimobe Blade struck Steel's hardened forearm, generating a shower of sparks that illuminated the ruined chamber like a thousand miniature stars. The shockwave from their clash shattered what remained of the nearby columns, sending fragments raining down around them.
Steel twisted impossibly in mid-air, his leg transforming into a weighted hammer that caught Michael squarely in the ribs. The vigilante rocketed backward, crashing through a wall with bone-crushing force. Without pause, Steel pursued, his damaged form still moving with frightening speed.
Michael recovered just as Steel reached him, the Shimobe Blade singing through the air as it deflected a punch that would have crushed his skull. Steel pivoted with liquid grace, his foot connecting with the blade's hilt and sending it spinning from Michael's grasp.
Steel pressed his advantage, his fist connecting with Michael's jaw in a thunderous impact that sent blood spraying from the vigilante's mouth. Michael stumbled backward, momentarily disoriented.
"All that power, and still so weak," Steel taunted, launching himself into the air for a killing blow.
Michael's eyes narrowed with deadly focus as he side-stepped the descending attack. His wings propelled him upward in a crimson blur, his boot connecting with Steel's temple with surgical precision. The metallic being staggered, momentarily disoriented by the pinpoint strike.
Before Steel could recover, Michael took twin crimson daggers from his gear, each one looking very sharp. He launched into a flurry of attacks, the twin blades leaving trails of crimson light as they sought vulnerable points in Steel's damaged form.
A slash aimed at Steel's neck was deflected by a hastily raised arm, sending sparks cascading around them. Steel countered with a vicious kick that sent Michael skidding backward across the fractured floor. The vigilante executed a perfect recovery, flipping to regain his balance before renewing his assault with the energy daggers.
Steel evaded the first strike, but the second dagger sliced across his chest, drawing a line of mercury blood. Enraged, Steel unleashed a devastating counter-punch that connected squarely with Michael's abdomen. The impact lifted the vigilante off his feet, blood erupting from his mouth as internal injuries manifested.
Michael crashed to the ground several meters away, his body momentarily convulsing from the catastrophic blow. With a thought, he summoned the Shimobe Blade near him, the katana flying across the chamber as if drawn by invisible forces.
Rising to one knee, Michael channeled unprecedented power into the blade. The Shimobe Blade began to rotate, slowly at first, then with increasing speed until it became a perfect circle of crimson light. Flames erupted along its length.
"CRIMSON TORNADO!" Michael roared, his voice carrying such power that the remaining windows in the chamber shattered simultaneously.
The rotating blade shot forward like a comet, its speed breaking the sound barrier with a thunderous crack. Steel attempted to dodge, but he couldn't match its velocity. The Shimobe Blade punched through his torso with surgical precision, carving a perfect circular hole through his metallic body. Mercury blood erupted from the wound as Steel stumbled backward, genuine pain registering in his mercury eyes.
Michael recalled the blade to his hand with a gesture, the weapon returning to him like a loyal companion. He rose to his full height, determination etched into every line of his battered face.
"It's time for my strongest attack," he declared, channeling the last reserves of his power into the Shimobe Blade. The katana erupted with crimson flames so intense they cast everything in blood-red light, the heat causing the metal floor beneath Michael to warp and bubble.
Steel's damaged form shuddered as he struggled to maintain cohesion. His perfect features contorted with rage and, perhaps, a hint of fear.
"I am sick and tired of you fucking kids," Steel snarled, mercury blood dripping from his wounds. "It's time for you to die for good. I do not care about my relation to you, you fucking kid."
Michael's wings expanded to their full span, the air around him ionizing from the sheer energy he was channeling. With a single powerful thrust, he launched himself forward, moving faster than the human eye could track. The air itself ignited in his wake, creating a tunnel of superheated plasma as he approached Steel with apocalyptic intent.
Time seemed to slow as Michael swung the Shimobe Blade in a perfect arc, its edge leaving reality-distorting heat ripples in its path.
"CRIMSON CRESCENT MOON SLASH!"
The attack manifested as a massive crescent of pure crimson flames, expanding outward from the blade's path with unstoppable force. Steel had no time to evade or counter—the flames engulfed him completely, its edge burning with such intensity that it cleaved through his metallic body like it was paper.
The slash continued beyond Steel, bisecting the metallic tree behind his throne with surgical precision. For a moment, everything was still—Steel's bisected form suspended in perfect stasis, the tree behind him similarly halved but not yet fallen.
Then reality reasserted itself. Steel's body separated along the perfect vertical cut, each half toppling in opposite directions as mercury blood flooded across the chamber floor. The metallic tree behind him groaned, then collapsed in twin segments that crashed to the ground with thunderous impact, sending metallic shrapnel in all directions.
Michael stood victorious, but the price was evident. The skin of his arms had blackened and blistered from channeling such intense flames, blood seeping from cracks in the charred flesh. His body, pushed beyond mortal limits, began to shut down. Before he could even process his victory, darkness claimed him, and he collapsed to the floor beside the bisected remains of his enemy.
***
As Steel's consciousness faded, memories flooded his fragmenting mind—not the memories of Steel, but of Grey Cinders, the man he once was.
Grey at twenty-four, desperately poor, holding the tiny hands of his four-year-old sister, Bloom. Her soft white hair framed her face like a halo, her beautiful blue cat-like eyes gazing up at him with absolute trust and adoration. The weight of responsibility crushed his young shoulders as he looked at their empty cupboards, at the holes in her small shoes.
"I won't let you starve," he whispered to her sleeping form one night, tears streaming down his face. "I'll find a way, I promise."
That promise led him to the Alpha Army—brutal training that left him vomiting blood, pushing himself beyond human limits. Every night he collapsed in exhaustion, clutching a small drawing Bloom had made for him. Her childish scrawl of "I love Big Brother" was his talisman, his reason to endure one more day, to push harder, to excel where others failed.
By twenty-six, his meteoric rise through the ranks had earned him prestige and enough money to move Bloom to a comfortable home, to provide her with education and security. But with higher rank came more dangerous missions.
The gorilla-like exploiter that finally defeated him was monstrous, its strength overwhelming. As Grey lay dying, the creature's blood poured into his open wounds, into his mouth as he gasped for final breaths. The virus within that blood triggered something dormant within him, an awakening that transformed agony into ecstasy, weakness into godlike power.
His ascension to the Heptad, the seven most powerful exploiters serving the government, should have been the culmination of all his sacrifice. Yet as he approached thirty-eight, something began to change. His power grew to that of an Anchor of the Earth, but with it came blackouts, moments where his consciousness would recede, trapped within his own body as something else took control.
Bloom was eighteen now, transformed from the fragile child he'd protected into a beautiful young woman with a bright future. Her laughter was the only music that could soothe the constant pain in his head, the whispers that grew louder each day.
The night everything changed began with a headache so severe it felt like his skull was fracturing from within. He stumbled from his bedroom seeking relief, finding Bloom reading quietly in their living room.
"Big brother? Are you okay?" Her concerned voice was the last thing he remembered before darkness claimed him.
When awareness returned, the room was silent. The walls, the furniture, even the ceiling were painted with crimson. And Bloom—his precious Bloom—lay in pieces, her beautiful eyes staring sightlessly at nothing, her white hair soaked red.
His scream transcended human sound, a wail of such primal anguish that it cracked the windows. He gathered her broken form in his arms, rocking back and forth as his mind shattered alongside his heart.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he sobbed, the words becoming meaningless through repetition.
But the horror didn't end there. Something fundamental had broken within him, releasing a monster he couldn't control. He fled into the night, but the darkness followed. Buildings crumbled beneath his touch. People—men, women, children—died screaming as he passed, their deaths fueling his madness. The atrocities he committed burned themselves into his memory even as he wept, trapped within his own body as it violated and destroyed.
The Heptad finally subdued him, imprisoning him in the deepest part of the Undercity. Before they sealed him away, he begged them to understand—"I'm a victim of my own power. It wasn't me, it wasn't me!"
But in the silence of his cell, the truth haunted him. It was him. Some fundamental part of him had committed those unspeakable acts. The power had merely stripped away his humanity, revealing the monster that perhaps had always lurked beneath.
His escape was inevitable. His first act of freedom was to create the tree—channeling a portion of his corruption, his disease, into its roots and branches. The Undercity was just the beginning. He planted trees in every region controlled by the Anchors, creating a network of corruption designed to bring the entire world to its knees. The greatest, most powerful tree he placed at the Earth's center, guarded by his true form while lesser clones protected the others. The clone in the Undercity was the weakest, but with its destruction, the others would only grow stronger.
As Steel's clone faded into nothingness, a vision appeared before him. Bloom stood smiling, her image shimmering like sunlight on water, untouched by violence or death.
"Don't worry, Big Brother," she said, her voice achingly gentle. "I believe in you. None of this was your fault. You're a great person, Big Brother."
The darkness claimed him before he could reach for her, his mercury tears freezing as the last spark of consciousness winked out.