Air whistled past him as Tetsuya Shinbo flew in from above the mansion on a forest green triangular platform. He had been out that day, on errands. He was dressed in street clothes. Jeans, a t-shirt for a Japanese band called AAA, and a black coat. What the errands were did not matter. Nothing mattered. Because as he approached the mansion, someone burst from a window on the upper floor. The person, unfamiliar, and he could not place any sort of face from the distance, impacted a tree.

He hovered, at a distance, to wait and see what happened next.

A moment later, an icy Cold Steel sprang out the shattered window. They landed on the ground, just a bit before the person who had hit the tree finally found their way to the dirt. Seconds after that, or maybe even simultaneously, ice erupted outward from the window, covering the mansion walls.

Shin did a mental schematic of the mansion, trying to place what room that was. Whose room was that? It took a moment, and it clicked. Maya. Mirror.

And there was ice on the walls, obscuring vision through the windows of the school. Sam did not want the students to see.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Ummmmmm.

The woman stumbled on the first step, then broke into a run, towards the—


Wait, what the hell was with all the people in front of the mansion?! He had somehow not noticed them. Shattering window must have won against crowd. Was that red uniform from pizza the Hutt? Delivery drivers…? Huh. The person was headed towards them, because—

Unimportant.

He was hovering high, waiting to see what happened next. Ready to support.

His head whipped as a voice he knew well shouted

>>TRAVIS

It shouted the name in a tone he hardly recognized. He didn’t hear that thirst for blood often from the ice manipulator.

Manipulating ice, Sam rose on a construct, up into the air near the mansion. Snow began to fall.

The double of CS ran after the woman. Clone, then. And Sam was lowering on the platform, amid the snow.

Shin watched the ray of frost slash across the floor, leaving a rapidly growing mound of Ice and sharp.

>>TRAVIS

The clone shouted.

Sam slid across the ground on ice. There were students running back towards the mansion in the periphery. Sam did not seem to see them, but Shin did. He glanced towards the main gates, and saw the cars, too.

Everything he was seeing hadn’t even taken a minute to occur. Ice, everywhere. Two cold steels. Media, gathering. Uber eats and door dash folks, staring.

This was bad. This was real bad. From his platform above it all, Shin could get a feel for the situation. He had the necessary distance.

The woman screamed, and tripped. Scrambled to her feet, but only after a glance at NEWS team Six.

She turned to face Sam.

Okay. So here’s what Shin did, having witnessed this all from an almost Metagaming perspective. Solve the entire situation here in this one move, right Shinbo?

No.

Distance prevented him from closing the gap, even if he sped in at 70MPH (which he was). He would never be able to stop two Cold Steels from doing their next action. Maybe, just maybe, he could distract one. Maybe he could distract two. But who was this person, and would distracting them allow her to get away? Was this for a show? What was the Maya connection?! He’d had all of thirty odd seconds, maybe sixty, to process absolutely nothing. So Shin dive bombed the ice clone and shouted

”Sam! STOP THIS! It’s a bad idea.”

He landed on the ground a bit away from the group. As established? He could not throw himself smack dab in the middle of this scene. It was not like the one time Carrick had been fighting that one crazy guy with the gun, and Shin has swooped in, golden armor on, and cut the guys gun in half, promptly ending the entire situation to no one’s applause. Gears were moving, cogs turning, well ahead of his arrival. Best he could do was be a presence to help calm the situation. There was no way he would be able to prevent Sam from doing whatever he wanted to do, if he decided that was necessary.

”It’s not,” Shin shouted. ”Necessary. Hey. What is going on?!”

In the back of his mind, Prince Adam began singing the legendary song. And he quashed it, with an effort of will.

Nothing else mattered. He needed to make an example of Travis. They’d be the example why not to mess with the X-men anymore. Why they should never set foot on the mansion grounds. Why never to experiment with magic on a mutant. The icemancer didn’t care what happened to him. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Either he dealt with this, or Mirror would have.

Sam didn’t have a family like Maya did. Eve would be okay, the others he took under his wing were already grown off to school as constructive members of society. Cora on the other hand... she might understand. She might not. Either way Sam was going to go through with it.

Travis fell, looked forward then looked back. There wasn’t panic on thier face. Shame. All this ice and snow Sam figured he’d put some fear into them. No matter. Once he started he’d get the reaction he was looking for.

The clone was the first to arrive, sending a kick right to the gut trying to get them to double over. The slide slowed as Sam arrived touching down. He walked casually over as the clone continued to assult the downed mystic.

>>>”Sam! STOP THIS! It’s a bad idea.”

It was Shin, a good friend. The icemancer didn’t have a ton of time to do what needed to be done. Shin could stop him with his powers when he arrived. There were few who could counter his power right away. Jorge and Mirror being the fastest with their abilities Shin couldn’t stop his aura effect just the immediate one without injuring the icemancer.

He ignored his friends command. It was a bad idea but it didn't’ matter. A lesson had to be taught. The mansion and all it’s residents were off limits. The clone grabbed one of Travis’s hands and dragged the mystic up only to be smacked down by an icy fist from the icemancer. The clone kicked again.

>>>”It’s not,” Necessary. Hey. What is going on?!”

This time Sam responded, lifting Travis up by the collar as the clone grabbed both arms and held the mystic upright. ”A LESSON!!!!” Sam shouted. Not aware that the camera crew was already scrambling to film the whole thing. ”Isn’t that right Travis. You are going to be the first example that is long overdue. You know how many times I had to rebuild my home from zealots like you!?!??”

The icemancer didn't’ wait for an answer. It was too many. He threw an uppercut into his stomach, hard. He didn’t hold back. There was too much rage pent up, years of it. Years of suppressing what he was trained to do. Years of suppressing the monster that Travis believed him to be. He was right. Sam was a monster. He had just been trying to hide it for all these years. Pretending to be something he wasn’t. Someone who could redeem their previous deeds.

He was loud, he didn’t care. Sam was pissed. The camera crew were set up now. ”YOU WILL REMEBER THIS! EVERYONE HERE IS UNDER MY PROTECTION! YOU EVER THINK OF TESTING YOUR MAGIC ON ONE OF US EVER AGAIN, REMEMBER THIS!” Right hook to Travis’s face followed by an uppercut from he left.

Ice climbed up Travis’s feet pinning him in place as the ice clone started to change shape to wrap around the torso of the mystic pinning him further but pulling his arms back so Sam had clear targets unhindered by the body’s natural reaction to guard itself. Another punch to the face and Sam continued to shout, ”She was a child and you used her as a Guinea pig! She’s human! More than I can say about you!” Another punch to the face, as the clone bent one of the arms in an unnatural angle until it broke.

”YOU WILL NEVER TOUCH MY FAMILY AGIAN!!!!” another punch to the gut. Sam felt a rib snap under his fist and he pulled back. His lone eye had tunnel vision. His thermal sense however detected others around but paid them little mind. Shin was there, he knew that but everyone else? It didn’t matter. No one was going to stop him from making an example. It was clear, everyone thought the X-men were too weak. The mansion was too weak.

The unbroken arm became the next focus as Sam eyed it then leaned in towards the beaten mystic and whispered, ”I wonder, can you cast with all the fingers in your hands broken. What about frostbite?” the com in his ear would have picked the threat, meaning Shin and whoever else on the X-men were listening in could hear.

To reiterate, There was no way he would be able to prevent Sam from doing whatever he wanted to do, if he decided that was necessary. But that did not mean he could not try. Or would not have to.

He could not read minds. His psychic gifts did not flow in that direction. If they had, maybe he could have read Sam’s mind. To see the rage, to see the wrath that swept around his mind like a battering blizzard, blinding him to the path ahead.

The clone kicked the person. Travis, he had called them. Sam touched down, just as Shard called out to him. ‘Sam, stop this…’ and all that stuff. Sam did not respond. He was 100 miles away. Scratch that, he was in Antarctica.

Shard could not counter the aura of cold. He felt it, even at his distance away. An ambient drop in the temperature.

The heartbeat in his head went
DOOM
DOOM

What could he do to stop him? If push came to shove?

The clone grabbed one of the person’s hands, hauled the woman up only to smash them down with an ice punch. A swift kick followed for the person on the ground.

He shouted something else. It probably would not matter. ‘Not necessary… what…’

Yadda yadda. Sam lifted the Travis up by their collar. Real Sam, then. For all Shard had known, the one doing the kicks and punching had been real. But clones usually did not do much talking… he thought. He had not really dealt much with the clone. But that did not matter. Both people were around the person, one pinning arms, one holding the woman up by her collar.

>>>”A Lesson,” Sam bellowed.

Film was rolling. The camera person looked like it was their best day, ever.

>>> ”Isn’t that right Travis.” Sam continued. “You are going to be the first example that is long overdue. You know how many times I had to rebuild my home from zealots like you!?!??”

So, Travis was a zealot, then. Pieces of the puzzle were being slid into place.

Sam threw uppercut number one.

Shard was really glad that so far, Sam had neglected to stab Travis with icicles, or freeze their arm, then shatter it like something from a violent video game. He could have done so much worse. The camera crew did not realize that, the audience at home probably would never realize that, but this was visible restraint.

‘… At least, for us mutants,’ Shard thought.

He had stepped off the large triangular platform, now. It was at the ready, hovering slightly off the ground nearby.

>>> ”YOU WILL REMEBER THIS! EVERYONE HERE IS UNDER MY PROTECTION! YOU EVER THINK OF TESTING YOUR MAGIC ON ONE OF US EVER AGAIN, REMEMBER THIS!”

Sam was hollering like a Greek God. Which was so not his usual character.

Right hook, uppercut. Jaw.

Oh, there was the ice, now. Climbing up Travis’s feet. Locking him in place. The (most definitely) ice clone changed form, to encase Travis. Cold Steel couldn’t alter his body like that. It held the woman in place, arms stuck in the ice.

Sam did some more wailing on her.

>>> ”She was a child and you used her as a Guinea pig! She’s human! More than I can say about you!”

Slide, slide. Pieces of the puzzle.

Oh shit.

Another punch, a broken arm.

Shard was moving forward now, running. It felt like he was running through jello, his arch nemesis. The shard platform was sliding across the grass behind him. It left some of the taller blades cut low.

>>> ”YOU WILL NEVER TOUCH MY FAMILY AGIAN!!!!”

Gut punch. Rib, crack.

Slow. So.

Slowww.

He had contemplated this, he hated to admit it. Planned for how he would handle Sam if the man snapped. Sam likely would have thanked him for it, on a more mundane day. It still made Shard feel dirty.

Sam leaned in close to the person, the woman who had touched Sam’s family, used a child as a guinea pig, done things bad enough to have caused… all this, right here.

A delivery driver dropped their bag of food in shock. In the audience, someone threw up. Travis looked like hell.

Shin, unfortunately, had been on errands. He was not wearing a comm on his ear. He used the more obvious handheld comm, most of the time. Ear comms were for special occasions. It was why he had missed the announcement of mansion on lockdown, and anything else important that day. Been left in the dark. Next time, maybe he would wear it more often. But that day, he completely missed what Sam had said to the woman known as Travis. It hardly mattered, in the grand scheme of things. Shard could figure out the gist of it.

He had been thinking for the last several seconds, the last minute or so, really. Summoning shards on top of that platform, building it up quietly, making it larger and larger, while out of the limelight. The entire time Sam had been attacking Travis, he had been building it up. Reinforcing it. Right now, the shard platform was huge. Which meant they Shard had a very large amount of pixels to create with.

Sam had just laid a massive smack down on a woman named Travis on the front lawn of the mansion, in front of students, loads of door dashers, and a full media entourage. This had to stop.

Usually, Shard armor takes time to form. This is because Shin forms it right. Smooth inside, not sharp. Not razors. Rounded. His power summoned razors. He used them to make body armor. How freaking stupid do you have to be to make armor out of razors?!

He had Sam’s dimensions. He was not using Henshin to snap everything into place, or form it up gently and calmly over time, so that things fit right. That was part of why it took him around five minutes to build up Shard armor on his person using the classic method. Safeties. Even Henshin took 2-3 minutes for full plate. But Shin was ignoring safety protocols, removing limiters.

The shard platform flew into thousands of little triangular razor blades, and soared at Cold Steel’s icy form. It happened fast, faster than Sam could likely process it.

A sound like safety glass crackling, or ice doing that slushy crunch?

He rapidly encased Cold Steel in a makeshift, piece-meal “shard armor” that was incomplete, and not smooth and safe on the inside. There was no better way to adequately describe it.

The shards covered the body, at speed. They took no accounting for how it would harm the wearer of the armor, even if Sam had been wearing any degree of ice on his person. Shards were not rounded, triangles pointed inwards. It did not have any sort of beautiful shape. It was not golden lion armor. It was not a tuxedo. It was plain. It was basic, practical. The only thing he had been able to develop during the 24 hours he had been locked up by SUPER on the other side of the rift. Just armor, made for violence.

Read the description:
Default shard streamlined and seamless, with little ostentation other than two long triangular “icicles” on his right shoulder, jutting back, and tiny shards creeping up his right cheek. Boots and gauntlets and breastplate that aren’t overdone. And the whole thing gives off an ambient white glow.

That was how one would describe his default on a good day. Today was not a good day. This armor was far from seamless, far from streamlined. It was cheap, it was jagged, it had holes and it had visible lines where things tried to snag together. No ostentation, still, save the “icicle” things on the right shoulder. But those dug in at an angle that told him maybe he had actually speared them into the armor’s wearer, rather than built them up around him.

This was outside his usual parameters. This was a hasty, crap job. Boots looked like painful poky ice cleat monstrosities, and the gauntlets looked like what Sam had likely envisioned as the end result of his work on the woman’s hands. Blunted, mishapen, jagged, frigid, white mess.

The white glow was ambient, yes, but it flickered and pulsed.

This was not in Shin’s wheelhouse. This was not something he would ever create to wear himself. Or give to others. This was a knock off armor that nobody would ever want.

This was Temu. This was Shard armor from Wish. The Spirit of Halloween ‘super soldier’ version of his super sentai-inspired design. It was total shit.

Sam got it. He got Shin’s shard trash suit. The Asian didn’t even say anything as he clothed Sam in the stuff, he just ran and let his mind run the calculations. Whole process took long enough for Sam to notice the pain first, then the fact that he was no longer on the ground, but was moving upwards.

He had not even waited until it was fully formed to start the process of levitation. The second the boots were formed, Shard had already begun the process to levitate him upwards in the shard Iron Maiden at 45MPH. Not top speed, no. The gauntlets came next, to stabilize the wobbly-ass levitation, as the back shards and the front shards encased Sam in a “breastplate” that dug into him on all sides. The first few seconds of the process had probably hurt like hell, and been disorienting as hell, unbalanced, shoddy, makeshift work. Then he had tried to balance it, in spite of it being awful. Which had probably overcompensated for things, and thrown him lurching forward for a second, like he were going to fall, then thrusting him backwards, a little to the left at an angle, and— and— and…

Sorry Cold Steel. Suffice it to say, the ride was awful. Abstract, confusing shock and awe-awe-ful.

The camera was rolling as one X-men attacked another. It recorded the process as that X-man started flying upwards, up and up and up and up,

Until he stopped.

About 250 feet in the air.

Camera person swung footage to a woman in a red blazer and skirt, with hair coifed perfectly, and makeup in-place.

The reporter on the other side of the camera Said one audible word for the whole world to hear.

“Schism?”

There was a several reflections of light as Sam slowed his next punch. Shards. No... No... No! No!”NO!” his punch slowed as it was encased by his friend. Someone who didn’t understand the situation. Someone who right now was getting in the way. ”NO!” the shards danced around the icemancer quickly forming a cage around him. ”Shin! SHIN! STOP! I’M NOT DONE YET!” Sam would have stopped eventually, after he beat Travis an inch away from death. He earned that much at least.

Ice surrounding his fist was pierced by the shards. They were sharp, unexpected and dug into his skin as he tried to power through the constructs from his teammate. That was when he felt weightless, ”SHIIIIIN!!!!” he flew away from Travis. His vision obscured by the light catching the shards at different angles. He tried to look past them, command his clone to finish the beating but he was too slow, and the construct didn't’ have a humanlike shape anymore meaning when he was pulled out of range it remained motionless.

Parts of his body felt warm. He was bleeding. It didn’t matter where from. It happened fast and Sam was trying to focus on making sure the lesson he was teaching Travis was finished. It wasn’t. It might be one of Sam’s greatest regrets later in life. He was flying upwards as his body shifted in the armor, more cuts. More blood filled the inside of his ice armor that was being cut from every angle. His powers tried to resolidify the ice but for every inch it healed it was also cut in another location.

”SHIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!!!!!!!” roared Sam as his anger and frustration had no decent outlet.

Pain. That was all Sam knew.

It was hard to care about someone else arriving on the scene after the kick to the gut. Cold Steel was talking to someone as he drug Sam up by her hand only to be slammed back down by a ferociously frosty fist.

The hit put stars in Sam’s eyes and she tried to use her other arm to protect herself but Cold Steel locked down both arms. He was berating Sam. Sam couldn’t answer as another hit came. Sam knew her beating would be on the news and as the beating progressed she began to question if it was worth it.

The brutality of it, the pain.

Before long, a rib was broken. An arm was broken.

Sam felt compelled to shriek in agony, but the broken rib only made that agony as her voice was shrill and loud only to fade to a pained whimper. Punctuated by another arm breaking. Sam’s eyes almost bugging out of her face as she coughed up blood with her next muted scream.

Then, the pain stopped coming anew. Sam tried to focus, to look at her assailant. Shards. Cold Steel was covered in shards. He was fighting them and yelling.

Through the pain, Sam managed the faintest of smiles.

It was all on camera.

A smile. The target of Sam’s wrath had a smile on their face. He caught it, even from that far off.

Sam’s ice clone was still holding them in place. They were battered, probably broken in some places. And smiling. Like the fact Sam had made a bad show of things and people were watching him made things sweet as cream.

The Asian swaggered up to the trapped and injured person. Looked them dead in the eyes. In a quiet voice, he told the person just what he thought of her.

”“Listen here, Travis touchdown. I am not on your side. There are no more heroes in this desperate struggle. I saved him, not you. And you are still going to get put away for whatever you did. For a very long time.”

He pulled away from them, then started walking towards the news reporters. He should really make a statement. Shin never let Sam get out of his range, and never took his attention fully off Travis. Not for long enough for them to escape. He approached the reporters with a side eye towards the woman every moment or so, and tried to explain the situation as he saw it.

This was a child abuser. They had targeted the mansion. Sam had been wrought with wroth. Nobody makes a habit of acting like he did, and no. There was no schism. Whatever that was. Someone needed to call the cops on the abuser. Clearly, they were the lowest of the low.

After five minutes, he started the process of letting Cold Steel down. Maybe he already had?