He returned to where Apollo was still on the ground, trapped in gravitational mode. The weight pressing down on him was less than it had been before; Apollo didn’t require the full force to remain grounded, and Rex wanted him to be present and ready for what was to co next.
He stood over Apollo with Vireth three feet off the ground in the telekinesis field and waited for Apollo to look up at him.
"I was hoping you’d have more than that left," Rex said. "But I understand..."
"The activation burns out fast when you’re not managing it with real power that cos from rage."
Apollo looked at Vireth.
"No... please... let her go," Apollo said, and his words sounded like soone who didn’t have much power left but was using it anyway because they would rather not be quiet. "She’s done nothing wrong to you...!"
"Please!!!"
Rex said, "She ca here to kill ."
"She ca here to keep safe...!" Apollo said. That’s not the sa thing."
"The blade she sent at my throat would suggest otherwise," Rex said.
He swung the telekinetic field sideways, sending Vireth crashing into the wall of the building she had just exited, the impact reverberating through Rex’s sternum. "Before you die, I’m going to give you a good show."
"No...! No more...! Please...!"
Rex brought her back.
She remained conscious. The Phantom Blade designation granted her physical abilities that surpassed the standard baseline, and while the impact with the wall had caused damage, it had not incapacitated her.
She looked at him with eyes that tracked his movents and hands that continued to search the darkness for another opportunity to generate a blade. "Gghh... you’re a monster, Xavier..."
"That’s really impressive," Rex said, and he ant it. "Let’s try more, okay?!"
He swung her again.
BAM!
The second impact was louder than the first, and this ti when he brought her back, the quality of her hands that looked for blades had stopped.
"Hey, Apollo, open your eyes wide." Rex said in a friendly way, "I need you to see this."
"STOP, PLEASE, ENOUGH OF THIS!!!" Apollo’s voice was stripped of everything but the urgency behind it, and he pushed against the gravitational containnt with both arms in the full, absolute way of soone who has completely stopped thinking about what is practical and is only acting on what they can’t accept.
"I am telling you to stop RIGHT NOW."
"She’s one of your harem mbers, right?" Rex said. "She ans sothing to you, and here I’m being honored by giving you a chance to do sothing about it."
The activation of Apollo went up. The containnt system broke, and he pushed the activation level three inches higher before Rex fixed it, causing the inches to fall back to zero.
"There’s a version of this where you’re strong enough to stop ," Rex said. His voice was calm, which was worse than shouting. "And a version where you’re not..."
"Right now, we’re in the second version, and I need you to understand that before we go on."
He used telekinesis on Apollo’s throat at containnt strength, which made breathing a conscious effort instead of an automatic one. Then he swung Vireth into the wall for the third ti.
"Co on! Co on! Let it all out, and fight with your full power!!!" He laughed.
When he brought her back, there was blood on the stone surface she had impacted.
Rex noticed that Vireth’s face didn’t show fear when she looked at Apollo through the field. This was unusual because fear would have been the expected reaction, and its absence said sothing about who she was.
"It’s okay, Apollo..." Vireth said to Apollo.
"I can... handle this..." Her voice was steady, like soone who had made a choice about what they were going to be and was being it. "Don’t—don’t let him use to break you... Okay?"
"That’s all he’s—"
Rex swung her against the wall for the fourth ti.
BAAAMMMM!
This ti, the sound was distinct from the previous three. It signaled that structural damage was accumulating beyond the stage where each impact resulted in isolated damage, moving into a realm where the cumulative damage beca significant.
Rex held Vireth in front of him at arm’s length and said, "Oh, you fucking piece of shit Apollo, I want to make sothing clear!"
"I can do this ALL FUCKIN’ DAY...! My regeneration is working, my energy reserves are full, and I’m not tired after everything you’ve done to !" Rex shouted. "DO YOU WANT TO SEE ANOTHER LOST?! IS THAT IT!?"
Apollo was pushing against the wall with both hands flat on the stone, and the activation was using up all of its energy, but it wasn’t enough to move the field by a asurable distance.
"But it seems like you, on the other hand," Rex said, "have been running your activation since the plaza, and you’re in the fourth minute of what I know for a fact is a four-minute maximum..."
"Your body is like that of soone who has been injured badly and is being held against a surface by a force they can’t override... maybe so real rage could do it."
He looked Apollo straight in the eye.
"You don’t have a choice here. I want you to know that clearly, not because I want you to feel hopeless, but because I want what I do next to go as planned."
He glanced at Vireth, who still regarded Apollo with the sa fierce loyalty she had shown throughout. She had already conducted the most crucial internal calculations before any of this had begun.
"It’s—" Vireth said.
"That’s fucking it..."
Rex used the Earthen Authority to pick up a piece of a building that had fallen down from the street behind him. The block of stone, asuring approximately two ters by one ter, had fallen from one of the facades that had been cracked by Apollo’s earlier uncontrolled release.
He held it in the air above Vireth with a telekinetic hold that was as clean and absolute as everything else he was doing tonight, and he didn’t want it to be anything apart from what it was.
"I’ll give you three seconds..."
"One..."
Apollo gritted his teeth. "STOOOOPPPP!!!"
"Two..."
"Apollo," Vireth said, her voice carrying the tone of soone who had made a decision to speak and was determined to finish, no matter the circumstances. "I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger..."
"Tell the others that I—"
"Three...!"
Rex let go of the stone with a snap of his finger.
BAAAMMMMM!
The sound it made was final in a way that only so sounds are, and the silence that ca after it was thick, like air that was working on sothing it didn’t expect to have to work on.
Rex looked at what was in front of him. "In the end... you’re still a worthless piece of shit, and I can’t believe that fraud goddess of life could choose you."
"What’s even funny is that you’re being called as one of the prophecy." Rex laughed. "What a fucking joke indeed."
After that, he turned to Apollo. And it was hard to describe what happened to Apollo in the next few seconds because it wasn’t a clear thing for him to see.
"YOUUUU...!!!" Apollo stomped the ground, causing it to shatter, and then his eyes locked onto Rex’s, radiating a brilliant light like an unleashed sun.
Rex smirked, and then he was already in position for what was about to co next.
The activation that had been functioning at a lower level reactivated, but not in the sa manner as before or in the chaotic burst that occurred when Zeraphyra fell. Instead, it transitioned into a third mode that was distinct from both previous states.
"...FUCKING...!!!" Apollo’s body ignited with a blazing gold fla.
The mode occurs when a person operates below their rational threshold while exceeding their emotional threshold. They enter a space between these two points, where their system relies on sothing beyond re decision-making or reflexes—sothing fundantal and instinctive.
In this mode, Apollo’s light transford and was no longer white.
The light transford into the color of midday in a clear sky, the precise hue that light possesses before it is influenced by distance or the atmosphere.
This new light also emitted a heat that was not typical fire heat but rather a fundantal form of heat—the heat present at the peak of the entropy reversal that Apollo’s system generated.
"...BAASTAARRDDDDD!!!"
Rex’s gravitational containnt field over Apollo stopped working because the energy generated by Apollo’s activation in that mode was incompatible with the external fields Rex was operating. This wasn’t because it technically disrupted them, but because the output was too much for the contact surface, just like water would overflow a container when the volu was too high.
"Hohhh...?!" Rex’s smirk widened. "Finally...! This is what I’ve been waiting for!"
"Yes...! Let that rage consu you; let it drive you to kill !"
"YOU TOOK... ALMOST EVERYTHING FROM !!!" Apollo’s voice began to echo.
And then he slowly got up.
"THE LIKES OF YOU..."
"...DOESN’T DESERVE ANY RCY, EVEN FROM THE GODDESS OF LIFE!"
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