WARNING: Blood, violence, death, depiction of suicide attacks, vomiting.

A Clash of Meteors

Jan tensely watched June's boot atop Dio's head. The one under her no longer expected things to end well, and set up for death's regards; in his view, it was long overdue since the rest of his squad was defeated. To Scutum, however, the decision was much harder, as he could not see himself giving in to his friends' killers, while another one's life depended on a surrender.

As he was about to remove the Cloth, a surprise came: June's foot was swiftly lifted from her target. When he paid attention, it became clear it had been forcefully pulled, and the one who did it was her own ally, Andromeda, through the available end of the chain. "What are you…?" she stopped, realizing what was about to happen, then shifted her body back in the process.

"I can't let you do this!" Shun said.

"Idiot!" Chameleon had correctly predicted Jan's opportunistic charge, so she exploded all accrued Cosmos and lunged back to avoid it; Scutum crossed the air like a bullet and entangled himself in the chain between them, swinging both Bronze Saints about. Since Shun was closest to him, he was also thrown slightly back, sliding over the floor.

Andromeda let go of his friend's leg knowing that Dio was safe, setting up for the other's onrush. June, in the other hand, had to stay at arm's length from Jan's sequential charge, and tied the whip around his shoulder to pull herself in for a kick. He was initially caught, but turned the move against her by leaping in and bashing her up to the ceiling. The girl rolled against it, let the whip loose, and twisted midair to land safely.

As the oscillating lights yet obliged her, she dashed aside and entered crypsis, another act Jan already felt fit to counter. He mapped out her coordinates by means of step sounds and shock waves, then easily deflected every disembodied flick of the whip coming in. What he was unable to foresee was the Andromeda Chain catching his right arm and pulling him back, since Shun had gotten up.

Distracted, he was unable to avoid the whip next time, along with the sound barrier-breaking boot fully smashed to his head. Although he rolled to safety, knelt back, and defended June's upcoming kick, a dizziness alarmed him. As a safe measure, Scutum quickly mustered energy and yelled: "NULL HORIZON!"

June was thrown back like before, but this time landed in a three-point pose, having realized the ability's mechanic. "Shun, if you wanted everyone to survive, you shouldn't have done that!" she shouted while throwing the whip at Jan, who preferred to regain equilibrium and ponder a way to escape the chain's grasp.

"I don't know what's going here," said Shun, "I just don't want any more violence!"

"This is the exact violence I tried to avoid!" Whereas it had become obvious to Shun that his old friend's cruel manners were strategic, there was no point in complaining, let alone time to do so, seeing that Scutum made a decision to blast himself with the most extreme speed towards the boy. The latter was stunned; the Thunder Wave would not travel quick enough to stop him, and the Rolling Defense would be slow and only capable of softening the blow, albeit with a dangerous sacrifice. He chose: "ROLLING DEFENSE!"

For a split second the other end of the chain went limp and released Musca from its grasp. It lifted in a spiral and was only able to partially mitigate Jan's force, such that when his push approached, Shun saw himself pressuring back not only with a momentous peak of Cosmos, but also with sheer brute strength, lest he falter.

Luckily their trial was cut short by June appearing and double-kicking the enemy away. The Silver Saint was sent far into one of the pillars dividing an intermedial corridor with the entrance hall. Some of the concrete collapsed, but the remainder of the structure stayed intact for the time being.

The girl kept an eye on Jan, yet whipped to the opposite side, accounting for an extra foe. "I admitted my mistake. If you will admit yours or not, we have two enemies to deal with now," she told Shun.

"Two?" Andromeda raised his view and caught a glimpse of Musca in the dark, released and feeling the vigor return to long-unused limbs.

"Ah, finally! I can breathe again," Dio said.

"Oh… there was no other way if not to let him go," Shun whispered to himself.

Dio met the boy's eyes and frowned. "What are you staring at, girly?"

"You remember what I told you regarding Lady Athena, so you won't try to kill us, right?"

The Silver Saint looked at Jan, who finished standing from the latest fall, then turned back to Shun and the amazon he so despised. The memory of his torture had not yet failed him. "Are you crazy? After what Shaina and that girl made me go through, I owe you nothing!" he said.

Seeing everyone else's Cosmos rise with killing intent, Shun shut eyes in disillusion and did the same. "I was wrong after all," said the boy, "this won't be solved without violence."

"You beat me before, but now I know I shouldn't underestimate you!"

Shun whispered and the Andromeda Chain spiraled to also cover Chameleon's perimeter, drawing nebulae along the carpet. Inquisitive initially, Jan screamed and risked another advance, while Dio came in more swiftly and calmly, apart from movements feeble out of atrophy.

June outsped Scutum and rebound him up with a kick; as the forces met, he didn't fly very far, instead backflipping and parrying the whip on the way down. He was thus hit by a few parallel lines of chain elevated from below, and Chameleon took advantage to strike him by slipping a leg between. His attempt to beat back was canceled by Andromeda's weapon, who dogged his every step, and the amazon had spare moments to skip away.

"Damn this chain!" Jan complained. He slapped the back of the octagonal shield and produced his Null Horizon, flinging metal out so that he could escape and seek another route.

On another side, Musca moved like before, but Shun chose not to hold back too much, admitting some level of violence was required. He kept Dio at bay with both controlled and automatic reactions of the chain, pushing back or splitting shallow cuts on the skin. "Dio, stop! I don't want to hurt you!" Shun said.

"Drop that good boy mask! I know it's all an act," said Musca.

"I'm serious!"

"Ah, quiet!"

Shun swung both arms up and the chains formed the shape of a hurricane around the foe. When the man moved, he was squeezed inwards and tightened in exposed points. He pushed with aid of the Cosmos before ending up stuck like before, but it was Jan who rescued him, as he aimed to take Andromeda down before he did the girl.

Seeing that Silver Saint fly through and dismantle the formation, Shun chased him with the square end, but it was blocked over and over again, until Scutum was close enough and frontflipped with a boot to his face. Andromeda tumbled back, leaving the chains in disarray a moment, and this gave Dio the chance to deny another capture.

Before Jan could hit her ally while he was down, June swept in with a spinning kick that lowered Jan's guard, then a hit with the whip's handle to keep him stunned. Dio came from behind and struck her neck with his wrist, and as she was pushed forward, the other socked her in the stomach.

"You're mine, little amazon!" Musca screamed with ecstasy, and was about to let all pent-up frustrations into a powerful strike.

"NO!" Shun did not allow that. The Andromeda Chain raced, inadvertently charged with electricity, so as the tip pierced one of the unprotected spots in Dio's back, it dug to his chest and shocked his organs, shutting down the heart.

"DIO!" After calling for his ally, Jan sought to smash June's face violently, but she had found balance and barely blocked with a gauntlet, still taking the harshness. Shun stared in sorrow at the Silver Saint's falling corpse, and his hand trembled with the chain in hands. His thoughts had to be censored if he were to continue fighting, since he had just ended a man he warmed up to, and it was not the moment to mourn an enemy's death.

In what was a shocking moment to the other two, Chameleon used her whole weight to push Jan as far from Shun as possible; the two rolled on top of each other, that being until she rolled further and slowly got up to inspire a deep breath.

The three were soon up again, Scutum looking at his dead ally with shock, whereas Shun merely grieved. "I won't forgive you! I won't forgive you for all the death you caused!" said Jan.

The boy calmly turned to him, blue eyes blank. "You never give us another option," he muttered. Without expressing much more emotion, he let the Nebula Chain draw its paths through the floor once more.

The Silver Saint cared not that his chances were slim, seeing that he thereon fell into rage. He insistently aimed to stay out of the chain's grasp to cause as much damage as possible, but June was fast in the defensive and baited him in its direction. In his outburst, Jan looked scary but did little, as he lost the mental capacity to judge his greatest strength as being the shield.

That also meant chances to stop him were plenty, and when the enemy was close enough, back turned, Andromeda sent both ends of the chain to tie around his armpits. Scutum flexed both arms and grunted in preparation to pull with absurd might, yet this had been predicated by the opponent. "THUNDER WAVE!" Shun shouted.

The electricity that afflicted Jan made him growl in distress. He tried his Null Horizon, but it had little effect. Although the shock ceased for a split second, it persisted thereafter, and the metal waved about with the tension.

June bounced off the carpet and did her own number. "RAZOR WHIP!" With the Scutum Cloth's good coverage, only the few exposed body parts were in serious danger, but the face, few sections of the arms, and a section of a thigh took deep cuts, proceeding to bleed profusely. The effect pushed him to the floor, and Shun made sure to pull harder on the chains.

In that state, he was hopeless. Stuck, unable to think straight, with a heavily injured face, bleeding out, downed… then Chameleon loomed over him. It was perhaps a sign of vehemence that Jan managed to maintain such confrontational expression, but he brought next a thing much worse than anything the Bronze Saints could've fathomed.

Scutum's eyes turned to the dark ceiling. He gasped for air, strained every muscle, and growled without end. A ridiculous burst of Cosmos appeared directly from his brain, and a red shine came from within it, like spotlights out of his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. The faint bit of light in the room was eventually sucked onto his outline; June and Shun felt their weapons be attracted, then the hair on their heads and on their skin.

"Get away from him, June!" Shun warned. She heed these words and turned to run away from that man, but saved energy for a difficult escape to come. He did his best too, letting the chains go and swirling them around the thick pillars behind him, so that he'd be held before the pull became too powerful.

The Silver Saint transitioned into long, bloodcurdling screams, body lensing and distorting while it lit brighter; soon he became an unrecognizable mass of white, space collapsed into itself, and the process continued only thanks to the amount of Cosmos he applied to the feat. The ceiling above cracked and arched downwards for a moment, coming close to collapsing, and the concrete Shun held onto almost broke all the way through. Ottomans and light fixtures flew towards the center, being caught and pulverized throughout.

June, however, had to claw the carpet, but this was in vain. As Dio's body got caught in the tidal force, so did she, flying in the air without control. By the time she came close to reaching Jan, his concentrated form — then fused with Musca's matter — blew outwards in spectacular fashion, body tissue fracturing or being reduced to burnt particles of skin. Pieces of the Scutum and Musca Cloths survived, albeit with cracks of their own after how impetuously they plastified back into original form, then released into various parts of the reception hall as projectiles.

There was silence after that. Chameleon was fallen on the floor, feeling muscles tingle and hearing incessant thumping in her head. She tapped her own legs, then her waist, and rolled up to make sure she could move properly. "I'm… I'm still alive," she mumbled. It was unbelievable the power that Saint had put into an act of self-destruction.

Shun stared in awe at the results, only dust being the remains of the Silver Saints they had just clashed with. He walked to his friend with slow steps, yet June got up without aid, fearing that the ceiling above would fall on her head. "I'm sorry about that. I thought there was something wrong with you," the boy said.

"If you hadn't…" June said that, sighed, and looked around for the whip, which had fallen beside her on the carpet "… just forget it. We won't get anywhere by arguing." She made sure the weapon was still of use, and it was, as she had kept it off the destruction by very little. "It's best to go outside and check on the others."

"Yeah, you're right." The amazon promptly left, but Shun hesitated a while, taking a glimpse of the vaporized remains. Those men's last moments were relived in his mind before he went outside.

The battle in the gardens was also an incredible display, despite Shaina and Seiya being in the states they were. Together they gave their all, and, when paired with Orion's equally gargantuan abilities, energy exploded in sparks and sonic booms certainly echoing through the otherwise quiet neighborhood.

As the kerfuffle evolved, Jaeger fell into a bed of flowers, so concrete and ceramic crumbled under him. He kicked himself upwards when Seiya appeared to finish blowing the remainder into shards. Shaina followed him, but had a boot held in its way to his neck, a defense that spat ember and tugged the two apart.

Pegasus insisted when the enemy landed, peppering him with his fast punches, all defended with the back of a gauntlet. Orion was about to counterattack until Ophiuchus pierced by using loud thunder, which pressured him to rethink.

The Silver Saint elected to cut the distance between them through a risky move, so he tightened the fingers of each fist and exploded in Cosmos. The Cloth glowed a bright red in the edges, and plasma exuded from his muscles. Seiya's Cosmos, too, had burned so hot he produced a blinding light, and both bolted into each other.

"PEGASUS METEOR FIST!"

"METEOR CRASH!"

Jaeger used himself as a missile, cast forward with arms and legs back. The wall of blazing flames that coated him burst through Pegasus' energy, which shrouded them in a blast before they fell entwined onto the grass. They were bloodied, injured, but awake, Seiya covered in bad scratches under the arms.

He pushed the Silver Saint off, who trembled as much as him on the way to his feet. Shaina passed by to kick Orion, but he somehow defended it, only being sent back by a second strike right to the head. The man rolled and returned to tackle her off balance, but Pegasus was partially up and hurled an uppercut forth, which Jaeger prefer to dodge by flying back and landing far, to not be overwhelmed while weakened.

The Bronze Saint groaned and grabbed a pain in the middle of the chest; it felt as if his sternum had sunken inwards from the impact, so it was harder to breathe. "Haah, that move… it completely cut through my Meteor Fist!" he said.

Shaina softly landed the claw hand on his shoulder, saying: "Don't take that head on anymore. It looks like a suicidal technique, and that's because it is."

"Huh?"

"He puts himself at the enemy's mercy hoping to inflict greater damage."

"He… he's willing to risk himself like that?"

"Orion trusts his own power like no other." They noticed that he was reinvigorated, and thus had that same knife hand from before aimed forth. "Here he comes again."

Shaina charged preemptively, so Seiya came after as to not be left behind. Upon their arrival, Jaeger saw himself surprised by their velocities and parried Ophiuchus' relentless slashes first, but when the other foe was thrown into the mix, he was taken aback and had to actively hit their limbs back, an attempt to either stun or exhaust them.

At some point Pegasus connected so heavily that a flash filled the gardens, and Orion struggled to maintain balance. Shaina dove in and swept him off his feet, and once he was parallel with the tiles below, Seiya concluded with a palm strike that tossed him back.

Jaeger somehow found balance on his way, rotated, and fell on his feet with no issue. "Very strong, as expected, but this isn't over," he said. However, when the faint sound of the mansion's back door opening reached him, he looked back in hopes of seeing Scutum Jan. The Saints he met were in fact Andromeda and Chameleon, two of those they stalked prior to the invasion. The truth became clear, so he sighed and carefully reprimed his position. "If Perseus and I don't at least put a dent on their manpower, we'll have failed."

"Shun, June!" Seiya called with relief.

"There's no way you can defeat the four of us on your own!" Andromeda said as he allowed the chain to spread through the ground. "Please, I beg you to stop this mindless bloodshed!"

Instead of a proper response, Orion shut the eyes and overloaded his own Cosmos. In his mind, death was a vivid possibility, and much like Scutum before him, he would not allow himself to be taken without trying to bring the enemy along to the Underworld. "Time has come…" he whispered, and once he opened those shining eyes and saw the enemies' menacing approach, he made a decision "… to let it all out. I'll make it worth the while."

He released a primal roar, not unlike Jan's swan song, and the energy he emitted was out of control. His next advance came with unbelievable speed at an apparently random target, Chameleon, who had no time to react and got thrown far. The Andromeda Chain, fast and precise as it was, could not keep up, so it seldom braked his onset with layered lines, obligating Shun to parry a punch with the forearm. When the other end came up, Jaeger escaped, flipping back.

That warrior traveled above like lightning, then descended at Ophiuchus with slowing down attacks, nonetheless as violent and accurate as before. She kept up only by virtue of her own abilities; they traded blows, both missing until a roundabout kick tumbled the amazon to the side.

Seiya had already come forth and could not break through the defenses. Indeed, Orion embodied such ire that he could do that while tapping off the encroaching Andromeda Chain, using the move of a defense for one to defend the other. June entered the scene to add difficulty, but Jaeger lifted himself, spinning many degrees with legs spread out, which was eventually enough to hit the two close to him.

He had landed as soon as Ophiuchus returned, and pushed her back again with a palm packed dense with power, but when Pegasus came quite close to hit, he assumed there would be no escape. With that the man aimed true, Cosmos still at epic heights since the birth of that tantrum, and he struck the Bronze Saint head first. "METEOR CRASH!"

Surprised, Seiya could not do a thing, not even protect himself with conventional methods. Jaeger was more suicidal than before — or so it seemed — and the two blasted into the remains of the concrete fountain in the garden's center. Still water sprayed over the ground, and particles of dust were raised.

Shaina angrily jumped after them, but there was no more Cosmos rising from the impact site, although she could see through the cloud Orion's red halo, a vestige of his stupendous efforts. His shadow grew slowly, so she lifted the claws in preparation for more fighting.

Nevertheless, when the Silver Saint became visible, he was covered in drapes of thick blood, reasonably conscious, yet with a limp arm and a lame leg. Seeing how he drunkenly crossed by her, she only had to push him with the shoulder for him to dismount onto the floor. Not bothering any longer, she ventured into where Seiya must've been.

He was even more hurt than that man, not at all conscious. There were blots of blood and deep scratches across his face, and the helmet had fallen back into a cracked bowl of the fountain. "Seiya!" she called, but there was no response, and for a second she thought he no longer breathed. "Seiya, no…" She made the mistake of grabbing the young man's shoulders and coming closer, but not only was he entirely limp, his face no longer looked like what she remembered, having been so hurt. "Seiya…"

The amazon's heart burned and her fingers trembled. She curled them deep, felt the claws dig into the palms, and sensed in that a potential to do something about that — not to save his life, but certainly to do something. Therewith she acted as she was wont to.

Shaina growled and rushed back towards where Orion was, who huffed and failed to stand many a time, as he needed something to hold onto. Reaching him, she stomped him down to the ground, pushed a knee to the lower back, and slammed the helmet off his head to grab him by the long hair.

The other two Bronze Saints, who had approached to see what happened, watched in shock as Ophiuchus executed that warrior in cold blood, ripping his throat to spill both venous and arterial blood onto the grass. His last scream was muffled by liquid flooding the vocal cords, but he soon was shoved back down.

After putting a boot under him and flipping him up, Shaina now knelt onto his chest to flog him further, each swing with a screech of deep fury, otherwise lacking words to express her soul. She only stopped when she heard June's boot come hither.

"Uhm, Shaina," she muttered. When the other amazon turned, they saw her mask, hair, and chest were covered in large drops of blood. "You already killed him. It's over."

Ophiuchus looked down at the flesh caught in her right hand, then down at the disfigured features of a former colleague. Not only had he become unrecognizable, but he seemed to no longer breathe, and somehow that felt just after what he did to Seiya. It was when the latter came back to her mind that dismay helped her resurface, so she lashed back at June. "What are you waiting for?" she said back. "Take Seiya! Take him to the hospital! GO!"

Chameleon obeyed those orders, went over to the unconscious Pegasus, put him over her shoulder, and left the vicinity with slight difficulty. Shaina stood and threw her hand down to rid it of any excess fluids, but she seemed to pace towards the corners of the gardens once a sickness possessed her.

"Miss Shaina," said a concerned Shun.

"Leave me for a while," she replied.

"A… alright."

Under the starry sky, the woman went far and rested a hand on a tree. That same feeling from before returned, and she could no longer hold it back. Her body was being affected by all of the suffering she saw, all of the suffering she caused... when it was impossible to control, Shaina slipped the mask aside and vomited once again.