Satoru stood beside Raven's fallen body, the RCT that he'd used on her, was slowly mending her wounds.
That was when he felt it; a sudden wave of intense negative energy bursting across the region, heavier than the chaos already raging around them.
His eyes narrowed onto the place with the most outburst and without missing a beat, he took a step forward, vanishing from his position.
On the outskirts of Cairo, where most of the city's people had already been evacuated, the entire outer zone had turned into a field of slaughter.
Explosions and gunfire tore through the block. Gunfire and screams mixed into a deafening storm as Regime soldiers, now nothing more than mindless killers; rained bullets on unarmed civilians.
Amongst them also were strange humanoid creatures in oversized blue robes and blank porcelain masks.
Satoru appeared above the place, blue light radiating off him. His cursed energy expanded outward, surrounding the soldiers and the Dollotrons, isolating them from the terrified survivors below.
Then everything went silent. The civilians looked up in confusion, eyes widening as they saw their attackers suddenly suspended midair, flailing helplessly inside a shimmering blue field.
The glow brightened; then the bodies dropped onto the ground with rapid acceleration and the ground erupted in red.
Streets turned into rivers of blood and shredded flesh, splattering walls and broken vehicles. Satoru stood still in the air as he brought his arms down, his expression unreadable.
'Those soldiers,' he thought, glancing at the mangled remains, 'Their minds had been broken too.' He remembered the Regime officer he and Kara had interrogated before.
The signs were the same; broken will and erased humanity, effectively turned into puppets. The rest had mutated beyond what any human body should allow.
He sensed movement to the east and turned his head. More life signs and a familiar one too. With a casual turn to the direction, he disappeared again.
When he reappeared, Flash was already there. The speedster had taken down several of the giant Dollotrons and the soldiers, their remains scattered around the wreckage, but he wasn't killing the smaller ones.
Instead, he focused on shielding the civilians caught in the crossfire. Barry skidded to a halt near a family cornered between two broken walls.
A handful of human-sized Dollotrons surrounded them. One of the creatures; small, most probably a child turned into one, had latched onto a young girl's leg.
Barry froze for a split second. He couldn't bring himself to strike something shaped like a kid. That hesitation cost immediately bit him back.
Another Dollotron raised a cleaver high above the father's head. Barry's senses shifted, the world slowing to a crawl. The cleaver's descent stretched out in slow motion.
'I can stop it,' he thought, the Speed Force crackling to life around him as he pushed himself forward.
'I can stop-' His eyes widened as the blade touched the man's hair. Barry gritted his teeth, pushing harder, time stretching thinner.
'I have to stop-' Before he could reach though, everything suddenly came to a halt. The air around them shimmered blue as every Dollotron in sight was yanked upwards.
They were then crushed together into a glowing sphere above the family's heads. The mass twisted, pulsing for a second before it shot away, leaving behind nothing but gusts of air.
Satoru stood a few steps away, his hand still raised, eyes faintly glowing azure as they were focused on Flash.
Barry froze mid-stride, still processing what had just happened, and what could've happened. The family Satoru just saved, quickly scrambled to their feet and stumbled away, leaving him standing there, his mind still spinning.
"Barry!" He turned at the sound. Satoru was beside him now, calling him with a sharp but calm voice.
"Snap out of it, man." Satoru said, snapping his fingers in front of his face.
Barry blinked, his mouth half open. "I was about to let-"
"It doesn't matter," Satoru cut him off. "They're fine now. We have to move; I don't think this is the only place it's happening."
Flash nodded quietly, the guilt still weighing on his face. Before he could respond, a voice broke through the comms.
"Flash! You hear me? Flash!" It was Plastic Man. His tone was tight and strained; he was definitely in the middle of a fight.
"Yes, Flash here," Barry replied.
"What happened, man? You good? I can't reach Satoru, Batman's busy, Harley and the others need backup in that town; and I'm kind of tied up here."
"Copy that," Barry said, glancing toward Satoru. The sorcerer gave him a small nod; he'd already heard what Patrick had just said.
Satoru disappeared first, his body flickering out of sight and Barry followed in a red flash. When they arrived, the town was also engulfed in chaos.
Streets flooded with mindless Regime soldiers, gunfire echoing through smoke and dust. Flash was the first to reach a small plaza where Catwoman knelt beside Huntress, who lay motionless in a pool of blood.
Barry took down the soldiers surrounding them in seconds, his movement just a blur of red and lightning. But even before he stopped, he knew; it was already too late for the woman.
"Selina," he said quietly as he appeared behind her. "We have to move… she's gone." He added in a solemn voice
Catwoman didn't look up. She pressed a blood-soaked cloth to Huntress's wound anyway, her hands still shaking.
"Hey-" Barry started, tapping her shoulder but she cut him off.
"I know." Her voice cracked as she gritted her teeth, closed Huntress's eyes and stood up.
They silently ran toward the next block, where Batwoman and Ivy were fighting off another group of soldiers. Satoru was already there, the soldiers were already down and he was standing in front of Harley's body.
Harley sat slumped against a wall, blood staining her red and blue clothes, the white paint on her face was smeared and broken. Her bat lay a few feet away, cracked clean through the handle.
Satoru stared down at her with a quiet, distant expression. The others were shouting questions, confusion and shock evident in their voices, but he barely heard them.
He'd already tried RCT on her. But he knew it wouldn't work since her soul was gone; same with Huntress. A body without a soul never responded to Reversed Cursed Energy.
The immediate threat in the area was over, but the lives had already been lost. Then Flash's comms crackled again. Oracle's voice came through fast and frantic.
She updated him on the situation; same as she told batman, reports from across the world, cities burning, countries collapsing everywhere and death tolls rising uncontrollably.
Barry's jaw clenched as he listened. He connected the dots with what Cyborg had recorded before his end and Satoru heard it too.
'Man… does everything always need to be this fucked?' he thought, dragging a hand through his hair. It was then, that everyone suddenly felt it at once.
A shockwave rolled through the ground, strong enough to shake the entire region. The air itself screamed; followed by the sound of a woman's raw and broken voice, echoing as if it was her final breath.
Everyone was frozen still and Satoru turned toward the direction it came from. The air around him shimmered and he stepped forward, vanishing with a silent implosion in the air.
Omega Machina stood in the cratered ground, holding Supergirl's limp body. A metallic spike extended from its wrist, driven straight through her chest.
She had pushed Batman out of the way just before it struck. Now he could only watch, frozen in horror, as the machine tossed her body aside like it was nothing.
It then started walking toward him. Before it could get close, the monster was suddenly jerked upward; yanked into the air and trapped inside a sphere of blue light.
The glow pulsed, and in the next moment, Batman felt himself being pulled backward at high speed. Flash had arrived as he whisked him and Supergirl's body away from the area.
Flash stopped only when they were a safe distance out. Gently, he laid her body down. The gaping hole through her chest left no room for doubt. Even a Kryptonian couldn't survive that.
Satoru appeared nearby, dropping down from above. Behind him, he'd already hurled Omega Machina far into space, buying them some time.
Flash turned toward him, asking, "What are you-"
But before he could finish, Satoru knelt beside Supergirl, his hand hovering above the fatal wound. After a few seconds, he clicked his tongue; a small, bitter sound.
'Am I always destined to be late for everything?' he thought as faces flashed in his mind; Nanami, Suguru, everyone he couldn't save.
"What do we do now," Flash said quietly. "Bruce, we have to find a way to stop the attacks throughout the world-" he suddenly stopped when he caught Batman giving him that look.
"No," Barry said, shaking his head. "I can't do that."
"What could be worse than this, Barry?" Bruce asked in a low but firm tone. "We can't stop what's happening everywhere at once. But that's the only way."
Barry looked down. "That whole world got destroyed, Bruce. Remember what we promised. We can't keep rewriting time."
"What are you two talking about?" Satoru asked.
They both went silent for a beat, then Barry finally said, "when I go faster than light, time moves along with me. I can travel anywhere along it's point."
"But that's the problem; I can't control it. I never know where I'll land. It could be a past that traverses into a better timeline… or something even worse."
"But what if you could control it?" Bruce asked.
Barry sighed, saying, "that's exactly the point. I can't control it; at least, I haven't tried to. After what happened last time; after Flashpoint; I swore I'd never even try it again."
Satoru stood, thinking for a second. "Let's say you could get close, not too far back but if you reached the point where this chaos started; before everything went to shit throughout the world; could you stop it before it got this bad?"
Barry hesitated. "If I could be that precise… maybe. Turning time back just a little wouldn't destroy reality like last time, but precision's the problem. I won't be able to save everyone."
"Who says you have to?" Satoru said, glancing back at him.
They both stared at him, "remember why you joined Superman's side?" Satoru went on, "you saw some reason in letting thousands die to save millions, even if misguided, that was a call you made."
"Now millions are already dead, including your friends. You're out of time for hesitation, Barry. If there's ever a moment to make that same choice again, it's now."
"But I-"
Satoru didn't let him finish. "We can still stop this. After I kill that thing." He pointed upward. High in the sky, a burning object was streaking toward them, glowing brighter as it reentered the atmosphere.
"But you know it'll be too late for billions before then," he said in a calm but heavy voice. "Make your choice, Barry." Satoru said.
He turned back toward the sky, blue energy surging around him. The air screamed as the object broke through the clouds, the air around it turning to plasma from the sheer speed.
Flash looked at Batman, who gave him a single nod; nothing more, nothing less. No speeches or comforting words, just a decision that he was already supporting to begin with.
Barry turned to Supergirl's body. Her face was still, empty of life. For a moment all sound faded, and in that silence, he heard his father's voice again; 'Run, Barry, keep running and don't ever look back.'
The last time he broke time, he did it for himself, for his mother. For a grief he couldn't carry. And now he was about to do it again; not to fix one life, but to try and save what was left of the world.
Maybe that was selfish too. Maybe this was another sin he would have to carry, but he couldn't stand still anymore.
A violent shockwave hit from behind, snapping him out of his thoughts. Satoru was already trading blows in the sky, chasing Omega Machina as it fell.
A blue sphere of imploding energy slammed into the machine's abdomen, launching it across the city ruins like an artillery round.
Barry turned toward the wide, empty and endless desert and began to run. Red lightning sparked across his body as he accelerated.
He got faster and Faster as the land blurred into streaks. Ground changed into ocean surface; cities became smears of light.
The Earth curled beneath his feet as he looped around the planet; again, again and again, as he kept building the momentum.
The Speed Force wrapped around him, powerful and hard to control as he got faster. He felt his skin cells tearing apart molecules by molecules as he pushed harder; his vision shaking and his lungs burning in pain.
'Just a few minutes,' he told himself. 'Go back a few minutes and don't overdo it. Just go back before it all started and the world fell apart. You can do this Barry; you have to do this!'
He gritted his teeth, pushing past the limits that once terrified him. Past the speed of light and past the limits of physics itself.
Red lightning tore the air open as he crossed the barrier of time and the world began to rewind in a violent blur.
Blood splashes inverted, shattered buildings rebuilt themselves, smoke flowed backward into fire.
Barry Allen ran through those few minutes of past, gripping the flow of time with everything he had so he wouldn't lose control and fall decades back, or into an unknown future he couldn't escape.
Blood ran from his nose, then his eyes but he still kept running. And then he saw it; the exact moment. Just before Lazlo's forces launched the worldwide attacks.
Just before the slaughter had stared Barry slammed both feet down and stopped. The pressure cracked the ground beneath him as he landed dead center in New Metropolis.
Screens across the city buildings showed the live news; displaying what they were able to, of the chaos in Egypt.
The media was blatantly calling it terrorism by the Insurgency. They showed censored and shaky footage of the battle.
Blurry clips of Satoru killing the Lanterns and Regime elites. People in the streets watched, some in shock and horror, some in relief; totally unaware that their world was only minutes away from meeting the same fate as Egypt.
Barry clenched his fists, this time, he was ready.
Back in Egypt:
Satoru stood over Raven's body, RCT glowing in his hand as he healed her. He blinked, surprise flickering in his face as something felt… off.
Like a déjà vu moment, as a strange set of memories hit him in fragments; Supergirl's dead body, fighting against a big, bio robotic creature, all blurred off in an instant.
He frowned, '…Huh?' He looked around slowly. "Weird…" he muttered.
He then looked in the direction Supergirl should have been, then vanished, the air collapsing where he stood.
Back at Ivy's safehouse, the Insurgency had regrouped. Black Lightning, Harley, Huntress, Batwoman, and Catwoman were still waiting for Batman's orders.
Nobody said anything. The world outside was suddenly too quiet, as if it was holding its breath. Then the sudden explosion hit close by.
A shockwave shook the building. Flames rose in the distance as the city was suddenly swallowed by chaos. Regime soldiers appeared out of nowhere, firing bullets and launching rockets down the streets. Screams of terror cut through the air.
"Move!" Jefferson shouted as they ran outside. But before they could act; a streak of scarlet lightning ripped past them.
Soldiers who were seconds away from pulling their triggers were suddenly torn apart, shredded in mid-step. Body parts hitting the ground before the echoes of previous gunfire even stopped.
To Flash, time had almost stopped. He moved through the stillness, the world frozen around him. He didn't need to go faster than light anymore; just that edge of touching the physical limit was enough and he had already made his choice.
'Satoru's already with Supergirl and Batman. Good, that means I can handle the rest.' He thought as he disappeared and reappeared again and again.
A red storm of motion continuously ripped through the entirety of Egypt. Within a few real-time seconds, every Regime soldiers and Dollotron in the country was already dead; torn apart by a scarlet blur too fast to see or react to.
Flash didn't speak, nor did he hesitate. And he didn't look away from what he was doing. Hundreds of millions had died in the last timeline.
Because he had hesitated then, because he tried to be gentle, because he told himself he still had time, but not this time.
He had started where it mattered most. He saved his allies first and his few remaining families. Then he moved to the chaos that had just begun spreading across the world.
The worldwide slaughter never got the chance to take a deep root. Civilians everywhere looked up in terror as bombs dropped from Regime drones; only for a red flash to slice through the sky and erase them before impact.
In other cities, soldiers opened fire on crowds; only for a scarlet streak to carve straight through them. Everywhere it passed, the horror ended instantly.
A blur through Moscow, through Sydney, London, Tokyo, Metropolis, Delhi, Paris. Wherever Lazlo's forces struck; human soldiers or Dollotron puppets; nothing survived.
Flash was ripping through armies like they were paper. The Speed Force shielded everything that wasn't his target.
Buildings stayed standing, civilians never felt the wind, cars didn't even rock from his movement and only the enemies were torn to shred.
"HAAAAAAAHHH!" He roared as he killed, and kept killing, his voice was lost across the world, a war-cry only speed and time itself could hear.
He kept running, without questioning what he had become. He just tore through the monsters destroying the world until nothing remained.
For a few frozen moments, the world truly did pause. And in that pause, it bore witness to the truly terrifying potential, of The Fastest Man Alive.
Oracle's monitors lit up red across the board, with worldwide emergency warnings, cities under attack and mass casualty predictions. Her pulse spiked as she scanned the feed.
Reports of attacks on multiple cities throughout the world, "what the hell-" She reached for comms to call Batman, but before she could even press the comms, everything changed again.
The red threat markers on her screens began disappearing one by one. In seconds, then entire attack zones just… stopped.
Heat signatures vanished, armed units dropped offline. The Dollotrons and soldiers were no longer moving and within a couple of more seconds, all worldwide assaults were listed as neutralized.
Oracle froze as she looked at the screen, "That's… impossible…" She muttered as she thought, 'was that… Flash?'
Somewhere in Russia, in a forest clearing far from the cities, Barry Allen finally came to a stop. He stumbled across a lake, skidding across the surface of water before crashing against a tree.
His body left a red smear across the bark as he slid down to sit, gasping. His chest heaved as Blood soaked him head to toe; none of it was his.
For a moment he didn't even move. He just stared up at the leaves above him while the wind shifted through the branches. There was silence but without a shred of peace.
He raised his hands; the dark underside of his reinforced gloves, were soaked with blood; he kept staring at his palms as they were shaking.
The adrenaline was gone, the sheer focus he had, disappeared. The Speed Force quieted around him. Now there was nothing left but the reality of what he had done.
Ignoring the people who were already dead, he'd focused on taking out the regime soldiers and Dollotrons.
After turning back time a few minutes to the past, Bary Allen, the Fastest man alive, killed more than ten thousand Dollotrons and roughly 197 thousand regime soldiers, within a span of 99.99 seconds.
He lowered his head, and even within his thoughts he didn't try to justify it; he didn't need to. He was the one who made the choice and he would carry it forever.
Somewhere else, far from the battlefield, Lazlo Valentin watched everything from his private command suite. His fingers tapped against the table as the last global feed flickered off.
"Never thought you'd be the one to stop this, Flash…" He muttered.
He had fully accounted for Flash as a potential threat. He had run simulations, scenarios and probabilities. But never; not once in his imagination had he predicted that Barry Allen would be mentally capable of doing this.
'Guess I underestimated him huh,' He thought then burst out laughing. "Hahaha…. Hahahahaha!"
He wasn't angry, nor irritated, not even close. He was just surprised and if he was honest with himself, he felt thrilled to be challenged like this
Lazlo still had another 'monster' to take care of. Someone, who he immediately understood when he first laid his eyes upon, was far beyond rules, nations or power.
Someone the world would never be ready for. His gaze shifted back to another screen; the live feed of Satoru Gojo.
A faint look of respect crossed his face. "A man who killed gods," Lazlo murmured. He then looked down at the control device linked to Omega Machina. Machina's neural readings were already getting unstable.
'I knew I couldn't hold it after the fusion,' Lazlo thought. 'But to lose control this soon…' He thought with a smile.
Omega Machina was evolving and growing stronger with each passing second. Its power was spiraling beyond physical and mental commands.
But there was no panic in Lazlo's face; control was never the point, after all. He just needed it to survive long enough, to reach its full potential.
Once that happened, it wouldn't matter how many times the world was saved. The beast would raze, the world to the ground anyway.
A short time earlier:
Omega Machina had finished its fusion, fully formed and ready to move. Lazlo's projection watched quietly as the biomechanical terror stepped toward its first target; Supergirl.
She pushed Batman away with her last strength. And the abomination struck its fist, down at her head, but just before it could crush her skull, it stopped in front of something.
Satoru stood between them, the titan's fist stopped just a few inches ahead of his head, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
Even without a contact, he could feel its raw force; the insane power packed into its frame. And beneath that, the limitless potential it carried.
Satoru looked back at Supergirl, and said, "You look like you've been through some stuff, girl, you good?"
"Yeah, no shit… Thanks for the save, I'll let you handle this one." Supergirl replied, wincing as she clutched the side of her chest.
"I bet." Satoru chuckled, knowing she couldn't fight, being exposed to all that Kryptonite at once.
He looked at Batman, and said in an apologetic tone, "Sorry Bats, my ear piece fell off somewhere."
Batman just growled with a frown but didn't say anything as another voice cut through their conversation.
"Ah… the one and only; God Slayer," Lazlo said through the projection.
Satoru tilted his head, staring at the hologram with mild annoyance. "And who are you supposed to be? Also, what's with the cheesy nickname?"
"That's what the world calls you now, Mr. Satoru Gojo," Lazlo replied with a smile. Omega Machina suddenly backed off, standing beside Lazlo's form.
Batman stepped forward, helping Supergirl back to her feet. "That's Lazlo Valentin," Bruce said. "Professor Pyg. The one who played everyone while we were busy tearing each other apart."
"Oh," Lazlo chuckled, "you have no idea what game I was about to play. But I'll admit; there was one thing I didn't account for; Flash being so bold."
"Never did I think that the man with such terrifying potential, held back by the mentality as durable as a celery stick, would be able to put a stop to that plan of mine." He spoke.
Satoru's eyes narrowed at the mention of Barry and even Batman looked caught off guard. Supergirl said nothing, but she felt something twist inside her head; like a faint echo of a memory, she wasn't supposed to have.
'Was that… a coincidence?' she thought, a bit uneasy.
Satoru gave Lazlo a lazy smirk. "So, all that talk, but you're still not brave enough to show up in person?"
"I'm a very realistic man," Lazlo said. "Look around. How would a normal human survive in this racket?"
"Right," Satoru said. "So, this toy is your proxy then, Pig or whatever your name is?"
"Oh, he's far more than a proxy," Lazlo said. "And definitely not a toy. Omega Machina is my greatest creation. Soon he'll be free of every chain... even mine."
"BOOM!"
Omega Machina was suddenly thrown back by a wave of red repulsive energy, smashing through a row of empty buildings. A sphere of red detonated where it had been standing a second earlier.
Satoru had already stepped forward, right hand raised. "Doesn't matter to me," he said. "I get what you're doing, I guess." He shrugged as he got closer to Lazlo.
"Big ambition and cool speeches. Good for you, man, really good." His smile suddenly faded, and eyes turned cold.
"But engrave this into that big overclocked brain of yours; After I kill this toy of yours, I will find you. And when I do, I will kill you."
Far away in his secret facility, Lazlo stared at Satoru's eyes on the screen. For a split second… something unpleasant squeezed in his chest.
'Fear?' He immediately crushed the thought. 'No, not a chance,' he thought as a slow grin spread across his face instead.
Omega Machina crashed across the city ruins, carving a canyon through concrete and steel before finally grinding to a stop.
Its right arm was missing; crushed by Blue and torn off from the shoulder. The kinetic force alone had leveled several blocks.
Satoru was still standing just ahead of Batman and Supergirl, when he felt it. The raw and furious, hatred flooding out from Machina.
It was negative energy solidified. A level of hatred that wanted extinction, all directed towards him. A grin crept across Satoru's face.
What most of his opponents never know is that, Satoru Gojo thrives in Negative Energy. And right now? He was drowning in it.
Machina stood. Its frame twisted unnaturally as it regenerated the missing arm. Bio-metallic flesh writhed, muscle and steel knitting back together. Jagged bone structures forced their way out along its shoulder, reinforcing its frame.
It roared, releasing a shockwave of war cry, that tumbled down any structures that were still standing in the proximity
Satoru crouched slightly, cursed energy roaring off him like a storm. In the next breath he launched forward, ripping through the air so fast the ground beneath him melted into slag.
The shock of his movement ionized the air in his path, leaving a streak of glowing blue plasma in his wake. He closed in fast; but he didn't just rely on raw speed.
He activated Blue, a void of space opening in front of himself and let the singularity drag him forward, compounding his acceleration to a level that vaporized anything along the path.
Unlike Flash, whose movement was cradled by the Speed Force; Satoru was still just a man. Eighty-plus kilograms of flesh and bone pushing beyond reason.
And when he stopped, he forced all that momentum forward, packing it into one devastating punch, amplified by raw cursed energy.
Machina met him head-on. The monster's metal arm pulsed with violent red lightning as it cocked back a massive punch.
The ground trembled beneath the pressure alone. The moment Satoru threw his strike; Machina threw its own.
The empty space between them folded in on itself as the air collapsed with an implosion. A white ball of violent heat and tearing force detonated outward like the birth of a miniature sun.
A dome of blinding plasma swallowed the ruins of the city, vaporizing everything in a heartbeat. Wind shockwaves blasted across the desert for miles, flattening everything in their path.
Far in the distance, Batman and Supergirl watched as a gigantic mushroom cloud rose into the sky, heat and pressure expanding a ring of cloud visible from hundreds of miles away.
Before the smoke could even settle, it was blown apart by another shockwave; one that came from within and two figures shot out of the cloud.
Machina was burned half to ash and Satoru's arm was a charred stump of visible bone; and both healed instantly.
Machina's body writhed and reformed like a living engine of evolution. Satoru's RCT burned through energy like a furnace, his arm re-forming as if nothing had happened.
Over three times his size, Machina towered over him, and it was still growing; bigger, stronger and Faster.
'Superman on crack,' Satoru thought, teeth grinding into a grin. 'With Flash thrown in as a bonus, great combo… Gotta give it to the man, he has good tastes.'
He launched himself high into the sky and Machina vanished, following him faster this time. A flash of crimson lightning tore across the sky.
Satoru stopped, hovering midair, scanning the space around him. Machina's movement flickered in and out of sight, visible only in quick bursts of red sparks.
Then came the rapid and feral strikes at impossible speeds.
Infinity stopped them as his perception slowed everything down, but Machina was still managing to catch him off guard with sheer speed alone.
Red streaks carved massive circular trails around Satoru as Machina began moving in rapid spirals. Satoru was trying to track every flash, every ripple and every hint of killing intent.
Then, Machina reappeared in front of him, arm cocked back for a punch, but this time Satoru saw it. The space in front of the fist was distorted, warping inward.
Infinity trembled, shuddering like a wall under too much pressure. Machina wasn't just hitting him. It was bending space. 'It's doing that with raw strength?'
Machina released a guttural roar and threw the punch full force. Satoru crossed his arms just in time. Infinity absorbed layers of the impact; but not all of it.
The concaved space hammered through the barrier, breaking past its usual invincibility. The punch connected with Satoru's guard with a deafening boom through the sky.
And he was gone; driven downward far from there. He smashed into the earth far beyond the desert, carving through miles of ground before detonating in a storm of dust and shattered stone.
He finally crashed to a stop in the middle of a wide, yellow grassland, earth split open around him. High above, Machina had tracked his descent as its eyes glowed red and it followed behind.
Its eyes glowed brighter, more violent energy and red lightning rippling across its body as it looked at Satoru, getting up from the crater on the ground.
Twin beams of hot red plasma erupted out of its eyes as it descended towards Satoru, aiming the attack right at him.
...… To be continued!