The man latched onto Alias's throat with ease, tightening his vice-like grip as her hands came up to pry his hand away, and he grinned even harder as she realised he wasn't bound by the rules of time. "Surprise," he said in a humourous tone before locking his elbow so that she was hoisted above him. "Time is an arbitrary unit made useful to those that need it, but time doesn't exist in my world. As the Chaoseater, I only wander where chaos exists and it seems as if I'm looking at her, the lone wolf, with other lone wolves. Nothing but destruction lies in your wake with nothing to save you from absolution."

"Don't think I asked for your monologue," she managed to choke out and Chaos raised a peculiar brow, his other hand reaching up to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand even as she leaned away from it. "But you're right, you did find chaos." Ice instantly washed over his hand and a single punch sent it shattering, the chokehold to Alias gone as Chaos stumbled back clutching onto the rest of his arm.

"Oh, that's interesting. Arcadius charges her power after all. Then I guess it's my turn." He lifted his already-regenerated arm and Alias felt a sudden wave roll over her, a tightness that completely restricted her muscles and locked her nerves; she wasn't even capable of feeling the cold underneath her skin. She had no chance to flinch away or avoid what was coming because the man brought his hand up and flicked the centre of her forehead, that not only blasted her backwards but created a shockwave that disturbed the bridge's structure, the stillness of time and the vehicles that were silently resting.

Only one real-time second passed when Jason had brought out his gadget, noticing that Alias wasn't next to him and the cracking of air alerting him to her flying frame, alongside other soaring trucks and cars. "Holy shit…Alias!" He gritted his teeth as he dove past the edge of the platform and used his grappling hook to touch down on a jeep, knowing that if he stayed up there he would've been crushed. Rex had teleported whilst the chaos was happening and barely missed being smacked in the head by a tyre and turned his head to witness the vehicle crunch and tumble to a rough stop, his eyes widening when Alias recovered in front of him.

"Can you...clear this bridge?" she called out to him as an explosion sounded off behind them. "There's not many vehicles but all of them can cause collateral damage I'm not prepared to clean up."

"On it." The blonde Meta jogged to an unscratched vehicle and teleported with it, and she hissed as the haze suddenly sparked against her cheeks with a heavy aching it dragged her to her knees, and Jason hopped over bonnets and rushed to her assuming she was in serious trouble.

"I'm okay," she told him as he helped her upright. "Just need to―" The bridge shook again, the ferocity of the tremors almost bringing them to their knees and Rex appeared for short moments before moving more cars away from the fight.

"He's really starting to piss me off," Jason commented coldly, crouching down to unsheath his All-Blades. "Got my back?"

"As long as you have mine." She smiled at his visor, knowing he was doing the same, and heard a suspension cable snap beside them. The unusual strain to the cable sent it snapping back and forth, and she had to shove him out of the way before he was viciously cut in half. The end of the cable shredded everything in its path, leaving a jagged scar in the asphalt, the entire bodywork of a Mini and...Alias looked down at her left arm. It was...gone. Completely severed from the bone, an unnaturally clean cut. She froze for a second as Jason regained his footing and had the words to yell at her for shoving him, again, without warning but didn't move when he glared at her arm.

"Alias, your―" Another of the bridge's cables snapped from its place, closer to Jason this time, and Alias threw her hand up, her frosty aura halting the cables in time. As much as she wanted to absolutely freak out and panic about the fact she was missing half of her arm, she did what was sensible in this intense situation and constructed a replacement. Violet ice slithered from her bicep downwards, sculpting itself into an identical left forearm with the wrist, palm, thumb and fingers rolling into actuality. She tested it briefly to make sure it was in sync with her nerves and muscles before looking at Jason.

"You worry about yourself, Red. I can't lose you. Not to this." The sky clapped and the winds began to pick up as she said this, and the man that summoned this chaos only smiled as he began to walk closer to them. "Ready?"

"Let's go." Rex had finally moved the vehicles away from this section of the bridge and didn't react when he saw what happened to the Meta Mercenary's arm, only when she blasted Jason into the air and followed suit a moment after. Even though he landed first Alias was already fighting Chaos, her strikes either being dodged or countered, but she didn't give him the opportunity to expose an opening as suddenly ice shimmered beside her. The Meta Mercenary and her clone were both going at it, but Jason had to join the fight when their enemy manipulated the tarmac underneath their feet, clasped it around Alias and flung her away from the fight. "Alias!"

"Jason Todd," Chaos smiled as he leaned away from the swinging All-Blade, using his forearms as defence when the vigilante mixed his fighting style; a reverse roundhouse and back kick wasn't near enough to knock his guard, and he inflicted damage of his own by pushing him off his base and performing the exact same moves. "It was a mistake that Ghul brought you back. You're still not good enough." Jason was recovering once he hit the floor and charged his mystic weaponry by slicing his thighs, the glowing blades extending into katanas just when he spun around and brought it upwards, and Chaos stumbled back as it drove through his entire torso.

"You don't know me, jackass," Red Hood spat as the topless man gently traced the bloody gash from his abdomen to his neck, his eyes glittering with something more as the split skin immediately healed over.

"I know enough to tear your soul apart. Shall I?"

"I'd like to see you try." Alias landed back in the fight, this time with the mist burning against her scratched face and her hands shrouded in ice gauntlets. She cover-rolled when she landed and flash-stepped so fast Jason barely saw the blur of her afterimage as she leapt over a wave of scrunched metal and managed to dive away from the snap of another suspension cable. Her fist crunched into Chaos' cheek and his head recoiled on impact, letting out a sound of surprise as he ducked under her next swing and tried for his own only to be parried by curling her hand around his striking arm, flicking it outwards and landing a straight cross in the centre of his chest. The force behind her punch was great enough that he was thrown completely off his feet and flying towards the entrance of the bridge, but a sheet of ice bounced off his body and sent him hurtling back down to earth. The shockwaves struck once again and the bridge rocked in its place, and Alias flung her arms outwards to expand her aura and froze the entire structure in time.

"He might be hell on bridges," Jason twirled his wrists as she rolled her shoulders back, but while he was walking the beginning of the bridge ignored Alias's frozen command as Chaos stalked towards them, the veins that crawled across his skin turning black alongside his eyes while every step tore everything apart behind him: the metal, the concrete, the tarmac, even the bricks and plaster and wood that were miles away from him begun to collect into a violent whirlwind. "But he's also Syndicate. Rex."

"Boss." Rex popped beside him and stared at the disorder that was edging closer and closer to them. "I...I think I can get into his head."

"Are you sure?" she asked him, punching a block of debris to pieces and even showed them another fighting style they've never seen her use; capoeira. She rocked from one foot to the other with a certain rhythm and, although her base was slightly higher than it should be, the twosome could see the confidence in her body language as she calmly ran her hands through her hair and breathed in deeply. "Okay...didn't think I still had it. I'm actually more surprised than you guys are. I don't even dance."

"Huh, you're telling me." The sudden cry from their enemy brought them back to their senses and Jason pointed at Rex before sprinting towards Chaos, "Do what you have to do, Rex! Make sure he doesn't tear up any more goddamn bridges!"

Don't worry. I don't intend to lose to a guy with no sense of dignity. Even if he is an embodiment.

Alias quickly peered at Rex, who had closed his eyes to concentrate, and she lifted a delicate hand to shroud him in an icy protective barrier before setting her eyes on Jason, who seemed oblivious to the warping mass behind him and moved her hand upwards. A wave of ice curled behind him and became the impenetrable shield that didn't even fragment against the force of the physical disarray, Alias hissing as the haze flared brighter but it wasn't in strain, but in amplification. She could...she could feel it, him, Arcadius, pulsing in her with such a power that she almost let it take over. Alias brought her hand up to smash the ice that sculpted the other while she sprinted after Red Hood, her arm fully regenerated.

There. In his chest. The Shard of Arcadius.

Her eyes glimmered as she felt Rex attempt to restore Chaos's mind to solitude, the psychic attacks sending the man into a bundle of late counters and missed shots. She was, however, more surprised as Jason was pretty much going up against someone who could tear the world apart if they wanted to, and winning. Guess fighting gods was his everyday job. Just as she was about to call his name, Chaos let out a blast of energy that rolled over them and Alias realised his strategy when suddenly her feet started leaving the asphalt. She thought fast and raised her hand, a massive ice sheet in the appearance of an intricate snowflake shuddering above the battlefield and pushed Jason towards her with a gust of frost whilst boosting towards him. Chaos bared his teeth as he barely restored himself to reality albeit unaffected by the change of gravity, with a grasp on the blonde Meta stronger than he thought, but then he looked up and put on an unimpressed expression. "Rex!"

Done.

There was no warning, no chance to brace oneself; lightning struck the snowflake out of nowhere and the synergy of the two elements created devastating results. Showers of glaciers spread across the bridge and stabbed into the first thing it struck, and cracks of light charred what it touched. It was reckless yet harmonious, the dance of ice and lightning finally taking centre stage. But it only lasted a moment as anything and everything that wasn't secured down simply dropped from the sky, their wings clipped just like that.

For a moment, there was silence. The silence that was soothing to listen to as you wish over and over to yourself that you've won, no more fighting, we could go home now. But when Alias struggled to lift herself off the floor, her muscles completely on fire with Jason giving her a hand, and witnessing Rex held by his jaw with his mouth covered by the man she thought they genuinely beat, she finally understood the extent of Syndicate's orders. The extent they'd go to, just to get a single person.

"You haven't won," Chaos smiled as he let go of Rex and his body slumped to the floor, but Jason saw exactly why Rex's eyes were rolled back; blood gushed from his throat and past his lips, staining his neck in red. No way, Chaos couldn't have...after what just happened? "You're easy game, Zero One. Honestly, I'm not sure why Syndicate wants someone like you so bad. I mean, it's not like you could kill chaos itself. You'd just create more chaos."

She felt it as she brought her own hands up to her throat, Jason's calls to her becoming fainter and fainter as she felt Rex's vocal chords being ripped from his throat, and screamed. No, no, no! Not him! Not...not Rex! She could feel her work to his scar become undone as Chaos's eyes returned to normal and he shrugged. "You fucking bastard!" Jason spoke coldly and the man laughed at the threat, sliding his bloody hands into his pockets.

"Rex was just a paperweight around you. His life costs nothing. Now that my turn is over, and you know I've been playing fair according to Sinclair, it's your turn. But who's going to move? The Red Hood that lost everything or the Meta Mercenary whose identity was reduced to zeroes and a one?" Jason made a face and glanced softly at Alias, who was eerily quiet, and cupped her face. Her teary eyes diverted to him, but there was no emotion.

Rex is my best friend. Jason blinked and Chaos's light smile dropped gradually as Alias stepped away from the vigilante, the mist still burning against her face as she effortlessly picked up the lonely All-Blade off the scarred terrain. He meant everything to me, as I meant everything to him. He'd be honoured to take his own life to save mine and that's the funny thing about Syndicate. She stopped moving and tilted her head at the shirtless man before lifting up her wielding hand to eye-level and letting go of the hilt. The All-Blade stayed in the air. You don't have any honour, just go about killing people. That, which I've regrettably inherited from you, is the one thing I'd change about myself. Not the torture, not the training, but my subconscious lust to kill indefinitely. My bloodlust.

"I see you've learnt a new trick―" His words were shoved back down his throat as his mouth was coated in a blanket of ice, and his raised his brows, but then he looked down at himself and realised his arms were ripped from his body, the searing agony being subdued by the fascination of this pink-haired woman. Oh? That was fast, he didn't even see it coming. The All-Blade, that was still floating beside her, was drenched in blood and the Shard of Arcadius was next to it, a gaping hole where his heart would be.

And if Sinclair thought that sending you was enough, "Then you've just dug your own grave."

The world froze to a standstill.