Pueris

Pueris stared at the picture. A picture of the entire group laughing and smiling. Red 0 had never looked so happy, the group that reaped mass destruction against the world.

"Reta? When did we take this?"

"A few months ago, you didn't even notice we took the picture." Reta laughed, by his side. His red hair running down his face wildly. "I need a haircut..."

Pueris nodded his head. "But you know we don't have time for that. Tomorrow it all happens... The day Justice 7 promised he would destroy us."

"You know that's a lie."

"I don't know what to believe in these days." Pueris looked at his hands, twitching as per usual. 

"All that killing turned me into a pacifist, at least that's what my body tells me."

"Your body is stupid, just believe in the goal. We will end this false force for good, Heroism. Trust me. Justice 7 won't even be able to touch us and the rest of the group."

The day came and everything went to shambles.

The entire group was ambushed in the dead of night, in the matter of seconds half the group was killed.

Their corpses were abandoned as Reta and Pueris ran away and fled, leaving the rest behind.

They then stood in a crater, after hours of fighting strong heroes the strongest himself arrived.

Justice 7 descended like a god.

He shot out two lasers from his eyes aiming for Pueris. They were massive lasers, the kind that shredded everything in sight.

"I can't even see- These damn lasers." Reta coughed, his body covered in the blood of his allies.

Reta was cautioning himself strictly. One bad move meant death. Death meant failure.

"Pueris... Please live."

Failure meant everything would've been in vain.

Soon, the temperature began to drop as the two revolving pillars of hyper-red began to shrink and swirl back into Justice 7's heat-lit eyes. It was through his two roughened arms covering his face that Reta could make out the figure of Pueris. What was left of him, at least.

The left arm of Pueris was no longer there, or anywhere to be seen.

As Pueris' figure stood in frailty, stumbling and limping, Reta realized his left arm had been replaced with an empty space. The connection from his arm to his body had been replaced by a surface that looked like a red-lit cigarette. His pitch-black eyes wavered around, clearly being consumed by a world of pain and misery. Justice 7 stretched his arms out for the first time in a while.

"I guess I can get started now."

He took a cloak from who knows where and clipped it to its back. It was entirely green. Forest green. Reta acknowledged the real start of the battle. Pushing his LED mask back with a dirty hand, a trail of dark red-black thunder started cruising behind him. It didn't fly or trail off, but wavered up and down like a kite in the wind. It wasn't just dark red thunder.

It was chaos.

As the Chaos grew to the level where it could probably consume a killer whale, Reta braced himself for pain.

"25% Chaos Manifestation."

Ancient Ink-Red symbols began forming all other Reta's body, only viewable due to his tattered state. His muscles contracted and tensed due to the feeling of a hot fluid in his veins. Each of the symbols were unique in their own way, but each symbol curved at the end. Soon they all conjoined, causing Reta to look like he had been infected with a real-world virus.

Surprisingly, Justice 7 didn't chuckle, he was well past that stage, now he seemed to be concentrating on Reta's every move.

"Getting somewhat serious, are we? But you still aren't there... I remember from that day, your true form."

Justice 7 took a small stroll towards Reta.

Reta adopted a combat stance, his arms before his face and his legs ready to pounce in any direction. Justice 7 strung his arms behind his back as his walk consisted of him bobbing up and down childishly.

The two maintained uneasy eye contact.

Oddly, Justice 7 shrugged his head down. Only his squished, oily hair was present-.

Boom.

Justice 7 was no longer determinable through normal vision. He had become a blur that moved faster than the eye could follow.

In a distrustful moment, Reta had crossed his arms in front of his chest as fast as his amped body allowed him to.

A figure of blue and red swooped in before he could do anymore.

No sound prevailed, that realm of speed had been long abandoned by Justice 7.

Pang.

Like a medievil battering ram, Justice 7's slammed into Reta. 

The impact caused sound to return to Reta's ears and with it, merciless pain.

Although Justice 7 had slammed into the durable metal attachments littered on Reta's chest, it still hurt like hell for Reta whose heart was beating faster than he could think.

Everything was out of his control, Reta was in the air. Rapidly flying further upwards due to momentum. He had no control over the situation, he panicked.

And he was with a man of the sky.

For a brief moment, Reta's eyes shimmered upon the sight of a green cape flapping in the wind, he found two deathly red-burnt eyes glaring at him. They gave off one feeling, an impending sense of doom. One that he had felt before, many years ago, from the very same eyes.

The humongous and uncontrollable trail of Chaos swarmed to protect Reta, but alas it proved futile.

Through the Chaos, Reta could not see the figure of Justice 7, but that all changed with one action.

Fzzt.

The Chaos swarm had been hollowed out in one punch from Justice 7 who now flew directly before Reta. The last of Reta's chaos fizzled out in shame.

As if playing with Reta, Justice 7 merely followed him as he began to descend through the air.

Reta cursed darkly. Things weren't looking good. All the Chaos he had built up was gone in an instant.

Reta tried to make use of Justice 7's arrogance by throwing a punch or lobbing a kick but found all his efforts returned swiftly and almost invisibly as thick blurs countered each of his actions.

As his hope was beaten and skewed over and over again, the only thing he could see other than a mundane yellow sky was the neutral if not cheery face of Justice 7.

The two soon descended, Justice 7 still following Reta face to face.

As Reta hit the ground with a thud, a large splatter of mud rose. Justice 7 flew over it, causing a bit of distance to form between the two.

Reta's figure skidded a few meters, he clawed his hands into the ground and swiftly regained his balance and composure.

He had a far higher chance on the ground in close-quarters combat.

Especially with Pueris' help...

Justice 7 casually dived back in and tried to pull Reta's arm ,in an attempt to dislocatine it but quickly found that his efforts were futile.

Justice 7's right arm had become incredibly immobile, it became frozen in it's action like a broken toy. It didn't feel hard to move but rather independent of his will. It was as if no matter how hard he pushed, it would be stuck at the same slowed speed.

Before he could solve this conundrum, Reta's arm was exposed, revealing many metallic implants before it smashed straight into the middle of Justice 7's face.

A satisfying and strucid wave of chaos-energy formed a deep and sharp eruption as his fist made contact.

One of the most basic appliances of Force Control, an explosion from the point of contact. Not willing to lose the opportunity, Reta continued smashing his right arm into Justice 7's face.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Up and down.

Behind and front-.

Justice 7 had stopped closing in on Reta, aware that he was only going to take more hits to the face.

Reta grinned, satisfied with the damage he had impended upon the World's N.1 Hero.

The dark-red-black shock-bursts produced from Reta's Chaos Force Control had already met the ground and dissapitated.

Normally these explosions from where his punches landed could be the size of entire buildings, but Reta scaled them down to fit Justice 7's face to maximize their efficiency.

Justice 7's was standing perfectly still whilst tediously cracking his neck by whirling his head around inhumanely.

The chorus of cracks made its return.

"Why don't you stop this one."

"Pueris."

His eyes seethed red magnificence.

BEUUUUUM.

The pillars made their return as well, twice as radiant as the ones used on Pueris, they threatened to incinerate Reta to shreds.

Justice 7 no longer possessed a face, it looked as though he was a headless corpse emitting two holy-red beacons of light.

Reta knew this move.

Allowing Chaos to trail behind him he strained his eyes and didn't blink once.

Up.

His figure blasted off the ground, causing dirt to spurt into the air after him.

The same dirt was predictably eradicated by two holy beams of pure-red death.

The beams swerved left and right, up and down but could not catch Reta as he shifted across the landscape with insane speed.

No, it wasn't just his speed that helped him survive and weave the impending doom.

It was his agility.

His capability to instantly turn to his max speed.

With it, he was gone in moments.

But soon, he fell victim to his agility.

He tripped.

The idea of going from 0 to 100 was perfect at first, but the change could be disorienting.

As he fell, Reta placed his hands down suddenly.

The world seemed to fall on his shoulders in that brief lapse. But he ignored it. Swiftly yanking himself away.

But not fast enough, unfortunately.

Two roaring and crashing towers of red throttled at a speed that could be considered manifestation.

Rather slowly...

Time had slowed in the area.

Reta gave Justice 7 a devious wave before pouncing off, this time his descent would let him land on Justice 7.

Justice 7 was in a pickle.

His beam and vision were trapped. He couldn't move his head fast enough to incinerate Reta and the beams were being slowed to the extent they had become useless.

The work of Pueris.

Justice 7 shut his eyes firmly and allowed himself to cool off. The faint afterglow burned his eyes but he didn't mind.

"Pain means nothing for the price of justice." His words seethed with restrained emotions.

Readying his left arm, Justice 7 was ready to blow Reta down to Hell. He waited for Reta to make the first move.

Reta swooped in from the sky, his right leg bent to release a kick to discombobulate Justice 7. The two were moments from impact.

Time seemed to have slowed.

Justice 7 planned to smash Reta away, he assumed he would be faster, after all nobody could beat him on his day, whether that be in speed, strength, power. or anything that he specialized in.

Time ensued.

"Pfteu."

Reta's kick grotesquely jabbed Justice 7's chin back, dislodging it from it's natural position.

Justice 7's arm was once again slowed through time, his attack was slowed and missed it's mark, thus rendering it useless.

Reta used his momentum and began something of a combo.

A punch with his left arm to the face.

A punch with his other arm to the stomach.

A sweep to take Justice 7 to the ground.

A punch to his back.

A choke-hold from the neck, into a right hook with meaning behind it.

You get the gist.

The two were fighting at a level where the above actions had all occurred in under a second.

Justice 7 could neither fight nor dodge as he found himself slowed again and again. Jolts ran through his body as his constitution instinctively jerked in a different direction with every hit to his system. His body tried to listen to him, but whatever he wanted done took minutes too long to be effective, and so he was beaten left and right until real blood began to leak from his skin.

Reta chortled, he seemed to be enjoying this deeply. "What happened to the invincible savior? Why is there blood on my hands? I know it's not mine. Ha!"

Although Justice 7 was far stronger than Reta and any damage could be healed easily, it felt like he was being blasted with comically-large rubber pellets every milli-second.

Reta's agile and unpredictable figure was soon halted as Justice 7 flew to the skies, escaping his time restraints in the process. 

The red marks on his pink face slowly faded as his eyes shot at the reason he was taking loss after loss in a clash that should've ended long ago.

"Pue-ris."

Boom.

His figure shot down, causing air loops to soar and widen, Pueris was the target.

Time slowed.

The wounded and crippled Pueris and the frustrated Justice 7 were a moment from impact.

The plane between life and death.