The Day Before

In a deafening moment, Pueris clenched his eyes tightly and used his powers without restraint. The two figures of blue-red and dark red seemed numb to him. Justice 7's rubber-red finger was practically on the fibers of Reta's cloak. Pueris attempted to slow and tame the time around Justice 7 and Reta but when he opened his eyes he soon realized that they had already disappeared.

Blinking nonsensically, Pueris lifted his head and stumbled as he went down the crevice.

"But they were just..."

In the spot where the two had just been, all that was left were a few wisps of chaos drifting in the air.

Pueris then felt hot iron seethe in his mind.

"Teleportation."

His breathing halted and his body froze.

Justice 7 had taken Reta somewhere on the battlefield. Somewhere far away.

Justice 7 and Reta were alone.

"He teleported Reta somewhere."

Pueris instantly began sprinting as fast as he could.

The short tunnel felt desperately long now.

His feet winced with every landing but he had to keep sprinting. Even if his throat burned with every gasp and even if his legs ached with every push forwards.

Pueris had awful stamina and physical abilities in general.

He ran like a child due to his pitiable figure and struggled to cram himself through the crevice once more. His thoughts rushed rampant in his frail void eyes.

Reta-.

Reta would most likely die without his assistance. Or? Had he died already?

As Pueris exited the metal mound cavern he found a sight for sore eyes. The somber air invaded his nostrils and although he was receiving ample air, he felt like he was suffocating.

"You've got to be kidding-."

Pueris' eyes shifted from right to left, feeling as though a bag of heavy iron bars had been dropped into his stomach Pueris felt a desire to return to the dark confines of the metal mound but his rationality kept him in front of the world.

12 White-blue helicopters had swerved and rushed into the scene, their dull blades rotating wildly.

Pueris could see no faces within the open helicopter doors, just shining balls of white representing cameras.

Heavy black-metal missiles revealed themselves as they clung to the sides of the helicopters ready to propel onward instantly.

Sirens whined and bombarded Pueris' ears.

An entourage of clicks sounded around Pueris' ears.

He found himself instantly covered in a deep-lime spotlight from 12 angles.

Before the world.

12 Figures dropped down from the helicopter doors.

Their form was unclear from Pueris' sight but he understood that they must've been some big shots if they received government help.

As they landed in metal mounds, metal shrapnel burst into the air before landing in bundles and clatters.

12 Heroes had landed. Not just any heroes, but the elite of the elite. A task force assembled with the goal of assisting Justice 7 and subdueing any remaining villains.

Pueris noticed their formation, they were encircling him like sharks.

Feeling vulnerable, Pueris noticed with a welp that he was completely surrounded.

Wiping Reta's name from his mind Pueris cursed bitterly and solemnly. Pueris had his own issues to get to, and things weren't looking particularly bright.

Because the task force sent for Reta AND Pueris had just arrived.

A hero in an entirely golden suit that covered everything apart from his heels spoke into a small palpable black microphone. The sky was a shade less golden than himself. He had well-kept flowing pink hair that only just reached his nape. His voice felt pure and accepting, like a hero and a saint. "Task Force Puereti is ready for collision."

A small buzzfeed fizzled through the microphone, he was communicating with someone.

The Golden Day rolled his shoulders back in one smooth movement.

"Roger that."

All Pueris could see was two heavenly and deadly golden eyes blazing through a golden mask.

Pueris muttered stubbornly.

"Damn it. I just want things to go according to the plan. Did these guys really take out all my accomplices? They don't even look injured in the slightest..."

Pueris wept silently as he forced himself into a state of pure concentration.

His fists clenched, as he tried to estimate how much energy he had left.

Shaking from stress, the desire to dig his head into the ground was dangerously high. This situation seemed completely hopeless, perhaps all he could do was pray Reta somehow won and came back to save him.

Battle was imminent.

On the other side of the globe...

A snow-white expanse.

No signs of humanity for 10s of miles.

The sky was no longer a miraculous gold but a distasteful black.

There were no stars in the sky.

There was only one entity in the sky that night.

Justice 7's figure was tall and proud as it towered a faint shadow over Reta from above.

A green cape flapped so loudly and wildly that the wind could not have been boosting it. But the power of 'justice' in it's stead could do the job.

Two red eyes gleamed upon Reta's disaster-struck figure.

A freezing and bone-chilling wind ran through Reta's thin cloak.

Reta's feet trailed through the snow towards the only man in the sky.

That's correct.

Justice 7 had teleported himself and Reta to an uninhabitable part of Russia. Reta was warmed by his chaos, Justice 7 was not a man measurable by human means. Neither of them would die to the cold winds of nature.

The day had turned to night in one slick instant.

Justice 7's voice silenced the drooling winds.

"What's the wait? You can go all out now."

"No one will be struck by the collateral damage, there is no way for Pueris to get in our ways anymore."

"You are fully capable of going 100%."

Reta's figure drew back cautiously. Waves of red in black drew back alongside Reta.

His 50% state was strong, but lacking against the man before him.

Reta didn't like going 100%.

Going 100% meant putting himself on a countdown.

He could only use 100% for so long and at the end the consequences were dire. It was a disastrous secret that only Reta knew. He had not even told the person he loved most about the full extent of his abilities, before they passed away atleast.

100% Chaos Manifestation was however...

The only thing that could even the playing field with the man in the sky.

Frustrated with Reta's cautiousness, Justice 7 hit his breaking point.

His calm, deceptive and soothing words became no more than rabid rants.

"Reta."

"Listen here, my old friend.

"Either you can go 100%."

"Or I can kill you right now."

"Appealing much? My entertainment is dwindling, and so is your time left alive."

Reta's figure soon melted into the ground.

The chaos turned the ethereal-white snow into a moldy red-black tint.

Soon, the only trace of Reta was the contaminated and unnatural ground that contrasted with the rest of the snow sea.

Justice 7 looked around in displeasure. A feeling of coy on his tongue.

"Running away?"

"Now that won't do-."

A whip of chaos grasped Justice 7's figure like a lasso. Waves of red traveled across the whip mysteriously.

Justice 7 looked merely amused at this apparatus.

"Childswork-."

The whip snapped downwards violently and abruptly. Straight into the bumpy grainy and heavenly snow, Justice 7 was relentlessly tugged down with it.

Boom.

A huge blast of snow rose like a heavy stone dropped into an ocean.

This time, however, it was Justice 7 being dropped into an ocean of snow.

The snow fell to the ground in fickle splatters.

Justice 7 had no clue what was going on.

His arms had sunk into the snow along with the rest of his limbs.

Pulling himself out, Justice 7 felt that the air was distorting and heavy.

"Well isn't this strange-."

Justice 7's breathing briefly halted.

He was no longer in a white expanse.

A sea of chaos coiled and struck at all near.

Whips of chaos similar to the one that had struck him down formed battalions and legions.

Chaos sparks in the air fizzled and struck down like deathly thunder.

And despite all of this, the only sound was that of deep, dark rumbling.

Justice 7 noticed his hands shaking.

But he wasn't scared.

It was merely the effect of the domain encompassing him.

Justice 7 peculiarly shook his head.

"What on good Earth-."

His voice still had its usual arrogance but a bit of amazement had slipped in.

His figure slowly lifted itself up through flight. Escaping the outskirts of the chaos domain and narrowly avoiding a chaos-thunder strike that scorched the dirt beneath the snow.

His cape had briefly remained stagnant.

Justice 7's eyes slipped around in their sockets robotically. Justice 7 noticed a magnificent effect of the almost circular domain of red.

It was all moving.

Moving inwards, like a whirlpool.

Every power of chaos was swinging in toward the source.

Justice 7 had to take a small amount of time to accept the sight.

Justice 7 then noticed a hard gaze on his left.

With his head turning flawlessly, Justice 7 found the core of the domain.

Reta.

He was no longer a cyber-like bandit.

He was merely a demon.

A demon in the night.

Pure and raw red chaos crashed and cracked the ground around him.

There was no longer a face.

Just a shaky black silhouette surrounded by a storm of red.

Pure and raw red chaos.

All the nearby black had been absorbed by Reta.

Reta was staring with such fixation that the whole world seemed to stare with him.

The two looked at each other for around 15 seconds.

15 seconds that stunned Justice 7.

Despite their long, long, and certainly long history, Justice 7 had never seen such a feat.

Justice 7's body jerked backward in the high air briefly as a demonic and disrupted voice creaked into his ears.

"Hey."

The chaos had seeped and surged within the voice, making it anything but Reta's.

"You said-."

Justice 7 noticed that the storm of Chaos had almost lost all of its black. It was all slowly being absorbed into the core, Reta, due to the whirlpool effect.

"That you were the-."

The domain was getting eerily close to Justice 7's position. As it expanded, the powers within it only got more dangerous and riled up.

"The, only man in the sky right?"

Justice 7 still wasn't shaken to his boots despite the forces of nature closing in. His voice returned to its smooth and wax-like nature.

"Well."

"Do you see anyone else up here?"

Reta looked up numbly.

His figure was that of childish skribbles, yet eery nevertheless.

Reta spoke bitterly. The chaos did not distort his voice this time.

"I see no man."

"But a monster who has killed more than any villain, who has been consumed by the system that he knew was corrupt from the start, but who embraces that corruption and wears it like a crown."

Justice 7 laughed the mockery off.

"You speak as though you are above me, I can name a hundred incidents with your name on the front-cover. You are the most hated person in the world, and their love for me will only grow when you die here."

Reta looked on solemnly.

Justice 7 continued his rant.

"You stand surrounded by your own weakness. You cannot harm me, if there ever was a chance of you killing me it was a long time ago."

And so, the two stood in tension.

Reta did not mind the words of Justice 7, he merely pulled a needle from one of his many pockets and injected a purple fluid into himself, it was a super-serum, with this he was on a timer.

Justice 7 did not mind his own words either, he was well aware they were both in the wrong, nevertheless only one of them would get to live.

And it was then that something odd occured.

Something twisted.

Something-.