Mortal Foil [AT - SPLIT]

Like a bullet, Garon was dragged across Central City. Between the near-death experience and Onoma's sudden and violent appearance, his vision blurred. The street beneath him grated against his armor, and a trail of sparks and burn marks was left in his wake. After what felt like an eternity, he was ejected into his final destination– the concrete wall of a nearby building. Garon recoiled as the impact spread a crater along the wall's surface and shook the building at his back. By the time he regained his senses, Onoma had already started hurling insults.

"Saved me...?" Garon asked, prying himself from the rubble. "Ha! I would've handled your sorry ass whether they showed up or not." From the corner of his eye, a second enemy appeared. Zenos. He thought the guy was joking when he confessed to being a bounty hunter earlier, but even if he wasn't, Garon quickly noticed the man was out of his league. A quick scan proved Zenos had no Power Level, not even a Power Level of 1. Despite the man's muscular appearance, Garon concluded he could handle him with minimal effort.

"Listen up!" Garon yelled, the engines in his armor purring to life. "I've got bigger fish to fry than you two idiots. The whole city's in danger, and everyone's watching. You think I'm gonna waste that opportunity on no-names like you?"

The sounds of discord ensuing from ground zero had faded to nothing. All that remained were the enemies in front of him.

"So this is your first and last warning! You're either gonna wait in line behind the villains who matter, or make me look cool in front of the heroes!"

His declaration of victory hadn't panned out. Instead of instilling fear or hesitation into the present villains, the sound of his insults attracted a newcomer to the scene. Garon's suit didn't detect a Power Level from the woman either, but the apparent gap in strength didn't stop her from pointing a pair of guns at his head.

The Doragon took a step back. Despite having tanked far more lethal ki blasts in the past, the idea of literally dodging a bullet gave a civilian like him some hesitation. He wasn't sure if he could do it. The now-trio of villains seemed to agree. The markswoman called him a child, questioning his motives for being here and telling him to walk away. Onoma howled with laughter and attempted to translate their difference in power to numbers anyone could understand. Zenos simply called the man a wimp and a half-ass. Garon thought these scumbags were the type to get straight to fighting, but the fact they took him so lightly only drove his anger further.

"What I do, and why I do it... is none of your fucking business," Garon directed towards Bloodhound and Zenos. "When people watch their kids get saved from burning buildings, do you think they stop to ask 'I wonder why that guy did that?' Hell no! They take their happy ending and smile. As long as I can make that happen, I'm a hero in their eyes– same as all those fighting out there. Nothin' fake about it."

And to Onoma, whose scaling would fall on deaf ears, Garon scoffed. "You could be three Super Saiyans on steroids for all I care! The job doesn't change! If no one else is gonna step up..."

Bracing one arm with the other, Garon fired off a volley of ki blasts toward the three supervillains, following up with an extra-large one straight for Onoma!

"...Then I'm your opponent, whether you like it or not!"

Garon's scattershot attack failed to connect, sprinkling explosions across the empty roads beyond them. He pulled back his arms, readying his next attack, but stopped short of charging forward when he noticed the markswoman preparing a counterattack. As she raised her pistols and Garon stared down the ends of two barrels, he aimed to lean back and weave out of the way. Instead, the bullet would prove faster than his reflexes, cleanly slitting the bridge of his nose and his left cheek. Garon's eyes widened. He glanced back at the fresh hole bored into the building behind him, but the lady's voice drew his attention back to the fight.

For someone who nearly drilled a bullet into his skull, Garon thought she had a lot of nerve telling him to "chill out." Before he could give her a piece of his mind, Onoma spoke up. Garon appreciated the villain's apathy– in a twisted way. The thought of their battle being soured by pity almost upset him more than the thought of losing.

"Try harder? Please," Garon laughed. Laughed? He didn't register his chuckle until after the fact. "No one cares about trying hard, just that you win. If I don't need a hundred martial arts books to do that, so what?" Garon looks at the lady's twin pistols. Zenos's sword. Onoma's scythe. "You're not any better."

He turns his attention back to Bloodhound. "Sorry, but the suit's not for sale. Not a chance in hell I'm letting you get this. If you want it, you're gonna have to pry it from my cold, dead–!"

In an instant, Garon was slammed into the side of a skyscraper, Onoma's extended hand gripped firmly around his neck. The Doragon struggled briefly, but before he could dig his claws into Onoma's arm, he was dragged along the concrete face of the building, carving a line across the wall like a pen to paper. In his wake, he only left rubble, sparks, and smears of golden blood. The abruptness and force of the attack overwhelmed Garon, and his body folded under the intensity until Onoma decided he'd had his fun.

As Garon was tossed aside and gasping for breath, Zenos tagged in. His movement felt nigh instant; the man's only tell was his taunting. Thinking quickly, Garon began to charge a ball of ki in his hands, raising them to counterattack before Zenos could throw his punch, but the ki-less warrior moved too quickly. Though Garon had put the energy sphere between them, he failed to fire it before Zenos punched, creating a point-blank explosion. The force launched Garon out of the air, catapulting him into the ground with a loud eruption on impact. As the dust took a moment to settle, it was difficult to tell whether or not the Doragon would get up– he likely would have made the sensible decision to stay down, beg, or use the opportunity to run– had it not been for one key thing.

Zenos had mistaken Garon's ambitions.

If money was the full extent of Garon's aspirations, he could've become a lawyer. There were easier ways to maximize material gain; he could have lived those lives away from the heat of battle.

Garon craved glory. He had no interest in the hero's responsibilities but in the hero's status– to play the role and reap the benefits. He wanted people to look in the sky and know his name. He wanted to instill fear in those who would dare challenge his throne. Nobody could earn those rights anywhere except on the battlefield, and there were no shortcuts. Those who understood that fact, Garon felt, took it for granted. When ki control, physical prowess, and magic become second nature, their impact can become diluted in the godlike performances they create. To the average person, such skills felt worlds away from their realm of possibility. For better or worse, Garon's desire to bridge that gap filled him with a burning determination to prove himself by any means necessary.

Most heroes fight because they feel an obligation toward the common good. Their self-sacrificial dedication to contribute towards that goal forces them to make hard decisions– to make their own calls on what's "right" or "wrong," to stop pushing forward when sacrifices outweigh the result, and to reconcile with their own weaknesses so others may assist where they lack. The hero's job is inherently communal, and there comes a point in every hero's journey when they must make the hard choice to recognize that fact, swallow their ego, and share the responsibility.

But Garon was selfish. And that made his choices exceptionally easy.

With staggered breath, Garon peeled himself off the uprooted concrete beneath him and slowly returned to his feet. As the dust cleared, he took the opportunity to wipe his face with the backside of his hand, staining his armor with gold.

"Is that it?"

He stared down his opponents.

"Lottus hit harder. If he's supposed to be as bad as it gets, you chumps're fresh out of luck."