The blinding blast from the five Eterian bombs lived up to the standards of their dragon-born makers. It blew the tents off their pegs, the cots off their iron frames and the bipeds off their feet with a deafening roar. The area around the ground erupted into flames with the dry grass catching fire immediately.

As Dante peered through his bleeding and half shut eyelids, he felt himself being warmed and slowly healed by the heat. With a bit of effort and a weak flick of his thumb, he morphed the fire into a raging inferno. He gave himself a pat on his back for watering the grass with gasoline, disguised as a gardener.

While he was feeding the fire and making it grow, he heard a familiar, metallic rhythm in the midst of the groans and cries of the fallen. His eyes synchronised with his ears and followed the sound.

A figure clad a glimmering blue armor walked past him without sparing him much of a glance. It stopped in front of the fire blocking the ground's only exit and analysed it for some time.

Oh joy, a new Guardian. The armor's blue, so it's a water sign. I wonder if that one knows that pouring water into an oil caused fire is dangerous.

Idiot, I shall thank you later.

But the armored figure simply extended both its hands into the fire and waited.

That should turn your metal suit into a friggin oven, you idiot!

Why aren't you bothered by the fire?

Water signs have internal air conditioning in their suits?!

Mama, you could've signed up for the caesarian. A few days earlier and I could've been a Scorpio. With an air conditioned armor!

I have so many regrets.

Oh my dio, you've got to be kidding me.

Dante pushed himself up from the red stained grass into a sitting position to get a better view. He felt the heat energy of the fire, his inferno, ebb away slowly as a cool current of air wafted through the ground.

The blue armoured guardian flexed a hand as if they were a ballerina, and a thick white shell of ice arched through the air from the ground, cutting them off from the fire.

He gurgled and spat out the blood from the gash on the inside of his cheeks. He wanted to throw away his false canines and melt the shell of ice to get to his darling flame.

My baby!

Please don't die, fire, please don't die. I can't control you fully from here now, but please hang in there. I'll feed you marshmallows and cresseydian oil cakes.

Please do a bit more damage.

"First-rain-after-summer, where are you?" Called the blue guardian with the voice of Princess Flower-of-glory.
She still faced the fire and the layer of ice between, preventing the ice from melting and the fire from eating the grass at her feet.

The guard who had escorted him earlier, rose from the debris of the royal tent and limped to her aid,

"Yes, milady?"

"Are you physically able to help?"

"A wounded shoulder is nothing to a retired kings-guard, milady. What is it that you desire?"

The Princess, or the Guardian of Cancer, shouted while extending her hands, "Acubens!"

Rising-moon, not lying far from the both of them, blinked as a thick layer of frost materialized on her arms, shimmered and melted away to reveal two white metal gauntlets.

She immediately removed them and put them on First-rain-after-summer's fists.

"Acubens can freeze and weaken most things. All you have to do is punch through the back wall and make an opening. I will try to control this fire.
Make haste!"

Dante scoffed mentally.

So this is an episode of One Punch Cresseydian now? Shouldn't you be trying to help the citizens rather than controlling the fire?

What do they even teach in schools these days?!

Stupid gauntlets, I'm so gonna enjoy melting them. The real question is: melt now or melt later?

He got his answer pretty quickly. The guard looked all the more intimidating with Acubens on his fists. He noticed the well defined muscles bulging out from beneath the uniform and the blue handlebar mustache curved upwards, now that both his lower face guard and his armour was removed.

The old man had been buff all the time. And Dante hadn't noticed it.

Melt later, this guy looks way too scary.

First-rain-after-summer strode to the wall, the determination in his eyes frightening the earthling in disguise out of his wits.

He got up and slowly followed the guard to the back wall, curious to know more about Acubens' powers.

The old man stopped before the wall and took in a deep breath. He first gave the wall the weakest punch possible by a biped. The surface of the wall went white with ice and emitted a pathetic creak. The guard gave it a touch.

The metal powdered on contact.

If my memory is correct, metals do become brittle at low temperatures. But only at sub-zero temperatures, roughly near the melting point of nitrogen. The gauntlets can lower the temperature that much?!

I know I should've taken a degree in chemistry, geez.

Stop having regrets.

Your life is awesome now, it would be much more awesome when Eteria and Cresseydia destroy each other.

Then you can take that degree in chemistry.

Dante watched the old man pepper the wall with right hooks like a professional boxer at speeds faster than his eyes could process. Metal fillings poured out like quicksilver, in a stream as the hole got wider and wider.

He watched the nurses help the injured into their arms, and administer first aid despite their own bleeding lips and blackened eyes.
Cancer herself was busy treating few of the mortally wounded not far away.

He wondered whether her armor was sterile enough to perform treatments.

I could heat it up and kill the germs you know, along with you.

He turned around to watch the progress of the old guard.

Wait, the old man's punches are slowing down. Didn't take his protein tablets today?

That's why you should let me do the job. I'll teach you how to punch, old man.

"Rising-moon, thank goodness, I was scared for a second that we'd be stuck here. Take these and keep punching."

What?

I can read minds, Rising-moon. Are you alright? I think you need to have your eyelids checked, they're black.

You can walk?

Ah, perhaps you might have used the disc for transport. I apologize for assuming earlier.

Cresseydia is indeed a large world.

The circle on the old cresseydian's forehead glowed, rivalling the shine of the metal gauntlets. He had a satisfied smile on his face, and was panting.

Oh dear.

Ah, don't worry, I can't peek into your private thoughts without permission. We're not that crass and uncultured.

I've seen cheeses more cultured than you cresseydians!

Cheeses. . .

Now is not the time son, do help us out.

Okay?

Before he knew it, the old guard walked upto him, slipped Acubens onto his arms and gently led him to the hole.

Dante took some time to admire the craftsmanship. The gauntlets were not metallic at all, now that he saw it at close. They seemed to be made of a white substance resembling pearl or opal, yet a thousand times stronger. They were designed in the form of crab claws, with the upper pincers ending in the fists. Intricate silver and golden patterns adorned them.

But it felt as if he had dipped his hands into a vat of boiling liquid nitrogen; his fingers went numb with the cold.

Crab, this sucks barnacles.

If I punch, my fingers will die of the cold. If I don't, old man Balboa here would knock me out cold.

He willed himself to concentrate despite the cold. He steadied himself and concentrated on a spot in the pit of his stomach.

A warmth blossomed, reminding him of his nanna's hot, tangerine flavoured biscotti fresh from the oven. He pulled it out and led into his fists, summoning his element into his frozen palms.

Feeling better, he began to slowly throw punches at the hole.

Left hook.

Right hook.

Left hook.

He felt himself enjoying the punching, as the metal began to crumble like wet sand on a beach. He wondered how many sand bags he could have obliterated with the gauntlets.

How many cresseydians he could've frozen to death.

All of a sudden, a vision swam in front of his eyes.

Something he wanted to forget. Something he wished that he had never seen.

Fear gripped his heart as his mind replayed the aftermath of the invasion that happened when he was thirteen.

Nanna?

No, please...

Rising-moon?

No.

Son, what happened?

Nanna...

My nanna.

Son, who is that!

Nanna...

Dear Breath-of-all-that-breathes, son, remove the gauntlets now! Acubens don't seem to be liking you anymore, get them off!

So cold...

So dead...

That's my nanna, but she's not inside the body.

Where is my nanna, yellowing body, where did she leave you and go to?

But she's not herself now.

So cold...

Yellowing husk.

Nanna is gone.

I wanna see her, crab.

Could you-

Rising-moon.

Thwack!

And he blacked out in a heap of powered metal.

>°<

Dante jumped up when he hit the asphalt in his dream, and found himself in a med-pod, on the road. He immediately patted himself and was surprised to find no injury on himself.

Except for the blackened eye, which was now dressed and taken care of with band-aids.

The firefighters had managed to spray sand and bring the fire, his inferno, down, before it could expand its influence beyond the stadium and the burnt up park nearby. The medics were tending to the injured, and had placed them onto floating med-pods for easy transportation. The paint on his skin was gone at several places, but thankfully the medics had chalked it up as mud stuck on him.

Cancer was talking to First-rain-after-summer, who was sitting upright in a pod. He was able to catch a few words of interest.

"-bombs-"

"-wicked-"

"-Eteria-"

"-conquer us-"

"-Rising-moon did well before Acubens felt homesick and showed him a few of his saddest memories."

"That's new, what did it show him?"

"The death of his terran caretaker. Her name was Nanna, she was sweet and kind to him. She had died during the invasion, Princess, she was one of the many that your father–"

"Murdered?" Came a voice out of nowhere.

Every single head on the road and the pavement turned, startled by the voice. Dante slowly stood up and got out, searching for its source with the cresseydians around him.

On the terrace of one of the burnt buildings near the ground, stood a crimson armored person, holding a voice amplifier near the helmet. The voice was male, with a very condescending tone.

The figure continued, "How did you like my little fire, Cancer? It would've been hilarious if you had poured water on it. Consider this to be retaliation against what your kind did to us in the past. And this won't be the last incident."

Cancer who was being held back by the old guard and the nurses yelled, rage bubbling within her, "You magma-dwelling worm, how dare you try and attack the defenseless sick?! Have you no shame to come before me and flaunt?! I will end you for this!"

"Awn, the pwetty princess is so angwy when hew citizens awe huwt. Where was this righteous anger when you decimated Terra? You think that there were no sick and needy there?"

"I am not my father!"

"No, child. You're way too pathetic for that. Your father, even if he had been a demon, had more backbone. See you around, dear Cancer, and I shall avenge those souls one day."

In the ruckus that followed the armored figure's exit, Rising-moon was seen to be one of the most vocal people in cursing, second only to Cancer herself.

However, Dante was angry for entirely different reasons.

That jerk stole my inferno! It was my inferno! I did that! I planted the bombs! I watered them with gasoline, who the hell does he think he is to steal my inferno, my fire.

Good think he took up the credit actually; I can continue on with phase two while they hunt him.

Why, the bloody idiot! They'll think that the terrans had organised this, they'll start investigating our settlement. I could be found out. Worse, they'll start hunting us down, they'll impose a curfew, they'll segregate us.

Not to mention the cresseydian rights activists who'll harass us on the streets calling us terrorists.

You little creep! I swear that I'll have you at the mercy of my arrows by tomorrow night.