Shinsou had seen a lot of inexplicable things in his life. He had seen Storm Veritas defy gravity using magnetism. He had witnessed Joshua Cronen kill a greater Thayne with his fists and feet. He had watched as Philomel van der Aart had levelled an entire city block with an earthquake. He had seen Elijah Belov carry himself great distances at unfathomable speeds. He had stood in awe as the ground under Shinsou’s very feet cracked and shattered under the force of Nanashi’s conjurings.

Now, however, the Telgradian truly faced the inexplicable; a girl who could spit in the face of death.

His eyes seared beneath the tips of his soaked hair as the glittering pile debris of glass, brought down from the floor above, smashed into dust. Arcane energy, sour like raw citrus, flowed from the source. Hot, thick air pushed back against him like syrup, clinging to his skin even as it resisted his movements and making it tingle like early stage paralysis. The world slowed to his mind as the sickness once again gripped him. Shinsou’s counterattack had been furious and had clearly caused devastating injuries to Felicity, but his underestimation of his opponent was now even more apparent.

How…?

The world to the front of the Telgradian was suddenly covered in a duality of discomfort; firstly, a blanket of shimmering dust from the vaporized glass matter, and secondly the fresh hell of a new, more potent dizziness. He saw, through the cacophony and the chaos, the wobbling form of the Neanderthal rise from the pile. It didn’t even seem like her anymore; just a mess of red, and her blood soaked form was hunched and feral like the worst of Xem’zund’s monstrosities.

Time stood still for a moment as Osiris tried to comprehend what he saw as the lances of dark matter, those crude, destructive things, protruded from her sickeningly. Then, with a snap, they simply shattered from the force of her aura.

I need to use all my power. If a direct hit from Enpera Kurohitsugi failed, then I-

Then, she rushed him.

As the radiation sickness sapped the last of his Hakai release from his body, all he could think to do to avoid her was jump hard to his right to avoid the coming storm. Her charge was shattering even the landscape around her, incinerating everything in its wake. It was then that Shinsou did something stupid. He knew he wanted to move, but his legs failed him. So, he froze. He froze, and his life didn’t flash before his eyes because he was too fucking scared to think. So, he froze, and pulled a stupid face.

The enraged Felicity smashed into him so violently that he cough up blood. The sheet of glass he stood on, the actual floor of the arena, cracked further and sprayed out volumes of white hot glass dust as the Telgradian’s pulverized body crashed and skidded to the foot of the staircase. Shinsou flailed and pushed himself, bruised and battered, back to his feet. The pain was agonizing, now. He could feel the leather of his boots burn to a crisp under Felicity’s thick radiation, giving a sensation of them fusing to his skin.

The world around him seemed to be blurring into a sickly haze, like an oil painting ruined by a water spillage. His joints ached where Felicity had struck him and where he had impacted the cold, hard floor. Refuge, rescue, or relief from the pain of his burning wound was urgently needed, but none looked promising. Blood flowed in crimson torrents from his lips, dripping down his charred skin.

He could only think to do one thing with what power remained in his body. His breath was labored to the point of almost choking and his strength felt sapped from the returning radiation sickness, but eventually the Telgradian, swaying like a rubber man, steadied himself. He looked down to his right to see that Enpera had been knocked within his reach with the force of the shoulder charge. He bent down, and locked Enpera in his soot smothered grip.

“You’ve pushed me to my limits,” He panted to her, his eyes narrowing, “…if you can hear me inside there, Felicity Rhyolite, you have my congratulations. But, you’ve run out of road.”

Shinsou closed his eyes, his cheeks red and searing and his eyes jaded and watering from the pain he was in. He raised Enpera, and slashed it across the air in front of him.

Danzetsu.

Impossibly deep blacks smouldered with barely suppressed power as everything around Shinsou whipped into a furious twister of arcane energies. Once the fog of smoke and electricity rolled away, the Telgradian’s physical form stood for all to see. It defied mortal comprehension; impossibly beautiful musculature, eternally intimidating visage complete with black eyes and waist length hair. The Neanderthal, growling like a mad beast, stood as her energy ferociously forced itself into each and every surface, further fissuring the already battered scenery.

He raised his hand up, and outstretched two fingers. At the fingertips, an orb of marbled black and dark green the size of a fist spun wildly.

Oscuras.

Shinsou Vaan Osiris had decided to release his trump card; a thin, powerful particle beam of dark matter. The orb warped and stretched into a cylindrical flow with an almighty crackkkkk, before tearing through the air at terrifying speed. The scent of ozone filled the air as the chemicals in the beam reacted with oxygen, burning it, but even as the frighteningly powerful shot ripped reality asunder, the Telgradian was already on one knee, the combined toll of the radiation, the exhaustion and the drain of his second transformation proving too much for even him.