The Arena settles into an eerie hush after the last duel, its black-crystal floor fading from molten orange to a faint ember glow. The echoes of fallen Protectors hang in the void like watchful ghosts.
A low hum gathers at the far gate, and a figure emerges—tall, deliberate, dressed in a crimson suit trimmed with sharp yellow streaks that catch the faint starlight. A yellow cape unfurls behind him as if stirred by a wind only he commands. No armor hides his frame; he carries nothing but poise and the electric certainty of purpose.
Grant feels the atmosphere tighten. Even the spectral audience of past Protectors leans forward, their silence sharpening into expectation.
The newcomer stops a few strides from him, eyes of molten brass meeting Grant's crimson-lit gaze. A slow smile curves his face, equal parts challenge and welcome.
"So the whispers were true," he says, voice resonant as struck metal. "A Core-born storm who defied his own world and walked straight into eternity."
Crimson lightning flickers across Grant's shoulders, a reflex he doesn't bother to suppress. "And you are?"
"Argorion," the stranger answers, tilting his head as if testing Grant's name on the air. "Protector of Sphere Five-Two-Aurion. Where heroes rise, or break beneath the Crisis they carry in their name." He steps closer, each movement deliberate, the crystal beneath his boots ringing like tempered glass. "I've crossed lifetimes seeking a rival who carries more than borrowed power. They say you wield the Core's heartbeat itself."
Grant lets a breath steady him. "I came here to understand balance, not to trade titles."
Argorion's grin widens. "Balance is forged only in the strike. Words won't reveal what the storm inside you can do." His cape flares with a sudden gust of energy, yellow light spilling across the floor. "Face me, Quish. No endless lives, no distant gods—just the truth of what we are."
A ripple passes through the coliseum. The echoes murmur like distant thunder, the unspoken law pressing in: a challenge issued cannot be ignored.
Grant feels the charge between them, sharp as the moment before a lightning bolt. He squares his stance, crimson arcs licking the dark.
"If it's a truth you want," he says, voice low but steady, "then step closer and find it."
The Arena holds its breath. Black-crystal panels hum beneath Grant's boots, a low resonance that feels less like sound and more like a verdict already forming.
Argorion's challenge hangs in the void, a blade suspended in silence.
Grant meets the other Protector's gaze and lets the charge settle in his chest. "If I fall," he says, each word deliberate, "my multiverse stands undefended. My people—my Anna—lose everything we've fought to keep. I won't gamble their lives for spectacle."
The red-suited challenger tilts his head, eyes igniting with a flare of yellow fire. "Spectacle?" His voice grinds like distant thunder. "You mistake me. This is no carnival of violence. This is the crucible. The Arena reveals what endless existence hides. Here, immortality falters. Here, we discover if infinity made you strong—or hollow."
Crimson light crawls along Grant's arms, his instincts urging battle, yet his resolve holds. "Strength isn't proved by killing the ones meant to keep creation alive."
Argorion steps closer, cape snapping in an unseen wind. "And yet every Protector who endures has stood where you stand and faced what you now refuse. Your Core remains safe while you draw breath. The question is whether you deserve the name Protector when eternity calls you to the test."
Around them, the silent congregation of Protectors does not move. Figures of flame, shadow, crystal, and storm watch with eyes like frozen suns.
Grant feels the weight of their gaze settle like gravity. Walking away will not endanger his world, but it will mark him: the Protector who hides behind endless life, the one who shrank from the trial all others embraced. Such a stain could follow him through every council, every alliance, every plea for aid when the Core demands unity.
He clenches his fists, lightning flickering between his fingers. "You want proof of worth," he murmurs, almost to himself. "But I was chosen to guard life, not feed the void."
Argorion's eyes narrow, the faintest smile cutting across his face. "Then guard it by standing. Fight not for death, but for the truth of who you are. The Arena asks nothing less."
The humming floor deepens to a pulsing beat that matches Grant's own heart. Choice presses in from all directions—fight and risk everything, or walk away and carry the brand of refusal through eternity.
The vast coliseum seems to tighten around them, black-crystal walls pulsing with a heartbeat older than stars. From the ring of onlookers, a single figure detaches—
the cloaked scholar Grant noticed in the great hall. Starlight drapes across the folds of the scholar's robes, eyes like quiet galaxies.
"Choice defines us," the scholar says, voice steady enough to still the cosmic hum. "To decline is your right. But strength untested invites doubt—in others…and in yourself."
The words settle like dust over the silent crowd.
A low chuckle cuts through. The wild-haired warrior with the reckless grin steps forward, power crackling around him like a gathering storm. "He's right," the warrior drawls. "Sometimes the only way to know you can protect them is to fight when there's nothing left to protect you."
Grant's crimson lightning answers before he can speak, restless arcs sliding across his suit, hissing against the crystalline floor. The Arena's pulse matches his own, an insistent rhythm he feels in bone and blood.
Images strike like lightning bolts:
Westvale burning under Juggernaut fire.
Anna's face, fearless even as the blast drew near.
Celestius's vast form, its command resonating through every choice since: Guard the Core.
The paradox sharpens in his chest.
To refuse means safety now—his world anchored while he stands.
But the silence of the Protectors promises something deeper:
that acceptance is proof not only of strength, but of the will to shield all realities when the Core trembles.
Grant draws a slow breath, eyes sweeping the ring of immortals. "You all believe this trial makes me more than a symbol," he says, voice carrying across the void. "That without it, I can't hold the Core."
The scholar inclines his head, neither confirming nor denying.
Grant feels the weight of Anna's memory, the pulse of infinite worlds threading through him. Lightning climbs his arms in a steady, relentless cadence.
He understands at last: turning away guards one world today.
Stepping forward may teach him how to guard every world forever.
The Arena holds its breath, a cathedral of black crystal and silent stars.
Grant steps forward, each stride sending faint sparks across the shifting floor. Crimson arcs gather around him, not in frenzy but in a slow, deliberate pulse.
"I won't fight for glory," he says, the words low yet carrying to every corner of the void. "I fight because balance demands I never run."
The crowd of eternal watchers—Protectors living and echoing—leans into the moment, their collective presence a tide of expectation.
Argorion's yellow-edged cape stirs in an unseen wind. He inclines his head, the gesture neither mocking nor humble but carved from the discipline of a thousand battles.
"Then let the Arena speak," he replies, voice a resonant vow.
A hush sweeps the stands. The luminous shades of fallen Protectors bow as one, a ripple of light acknowledging the pact.
The floor beneath them brightens to a molten gold, reshaping itself into the first battlefield—stone ridges rising, nebula-fire swirling in the distance.
Grant closes his eyes for a heartbeat. He feels Anna's memory, Celestius's charge, and the fragile rhythm of every world he has sworn to guard.
When he opens them, the crimson lightning along his suit steadies, not as a storm but as a promise.
The duel is no longer a question of victory.
It is the proof of a Protector who will not turn away.
A single, sonorous gong rolls through the void, a sound so deep it trembles the bones of the Citadel itself.
The Arena convulses in answer. Molten dunes surge upward, hardening into jagged obsidian peaks that spear toward an endless sky.
Overhead, storm-clouds swirl into a maelstrom of gold, their lightning crackling in a rhythm that echoes Argorion's brilliant cape.
Heat and ozone thicken the air. Crimson and yellow currents coil like rival serpents, twisting around the two combatants until the entire battlefield hums with barely contained power.
Argorion stands tall, the void-light glinting off his sleek red suit, the golden trim alive with every flicker of the storm. His cape snaps like a living banner in the charged wind.
"Show me the Core's storm," he calls, voice cutting through the thunder.
Grant's eyes ignite, pupils swallowed by crimson glow. Red lightning crawls across his suit in branching veins, each spark a heartbeat of the multiverse itself. He exhales once—steady, certain.
They move in the same instant.
The space between them collapses in a single flash of color: crimson streak colliding with a golden blur.
A shockwave rips outward, splintering the obsidian peaks and sending echoes racing through the silent stands. The shades of fallen Protectors flare bright, their collective memory vibrating like struck glass.