Welcome to the Hades Realm

The members of Team New York, minus the cobalt speedster who still sulked on his own, found themselves at the center of what seemed like an infinite void of darkness, only illuminated by a crimson sun that shone above them. This was the aforementioned Hades Realm, just one of the plethora of abilities that Mania had at his disposal. In this Hades Realm, Mania was its ruler. Say he wanted the entirety of the realm to be shrouded in complete darkness, all he needed to do was imagine it and it would be done. The same could be said if he desired the realm to match temperatures equivalent to hell itself or reach that of absolute zero. 

Infinite and Mania were the only two on their feet as everyone else was being affected by the realm's base configuration; feeling themselves being weighed down by 2Gs of force. Due to Infinte's natural strength, the gravity being doubled had little to no effect on him. A change in pressure was noted by the do-all hero– but it was minor, comparable to wearing weighted training gear. It was nostalgic in a way, reminding him of his life before he'd become Infinite. 

His lusterless expression hid the fact that excitement was swelling up inside of him. It felt like it'd been eons since the last time he truly had to exert himself while training. However, something was weighing him down deep inside, not physically, but emotionally. The Blur, his best friend, wouldn't be joining him. No matter– Infinite would train hard enough for the two of them.

Mania too would remain unaffected. He was the emperor of his Hades Realm, spending days and sometimes nights inside of the realm, training himself to withstand even 3Gs of force. With eyes hidden beneath his skull-shaped mask, Mania leered at his teammates, feeling sensations of fear, excitement, and responsibility within himself. He was afraid of death, something he hadn't feared since the name Mania had been uttered by him for the first time. Yet, at the same time, facing death head-on was exhilarating, along with the opportunity to achieve great heights with some of the strongest fighters on Earth. Oddly enough, he felt responsible for his teammates's progression as well; not due to caring about their safety or their lives, but because their strength directly coincided with his odds of making it out alive. 

Mania, as if he was stealing the role of team leader from Professor Anarcy, paced along the line of struggling members with his arms folded behind his back like a drill sergeant. "This is my Hades Realm. Had you been an enemy of mine, you would have already been dead. However, lucky for you we are allies for the time being; therefore you may live another day. Right about now, you should start to feel the blood rushing into your brain and your mouth may want to naturally open, which is normal. This is due to the 2Gs of force weighing down your body." As he spoke, Professor Anarchy, Tempo, and Celsius were already pushing themselves off of the ground with their hands and knees. Out of everyone, they wanted to become stronger the most. That isn't to say the others didn't share the same sentiment, seeing the other three was inspiring, compelling the rest of the team to push themselves harder.

"I am the ruler of this realm. At the snap of a finger–" Mania did just that, snapping his fingers together to turn the realm into a scorching desert. Immediately, team New York could feel their skin start to heat up, as well as their sweat glands preparing to secrete fluid. "The realm can undergo almost any transformation I please." Mania snapped his fingers once more and the realm returned to its base state, relieving everyone of the intense heat. "You may be wondering how I can seemingly move mountains and control the atmosphere. That is because this domain isn't real. It is merely a realm that exists in my psyche. However, the human psyche is powerful." Mania stopped in front of Fixer, crouching down to his level as the boy struggled to rise against the doubled gravitational pull. "Have you ever heard of the placebo effect?" he asked the four-eyed child, but Fixer couldn't move his mouth to speak, even if he wanted to.

Mania stood up straight once more, pacing in front of his struggling peers as he shifted from drill sergeant to psychology professor. "If a person is given a sugar pill, rather than actual medicine, their condition can miraculously improve. Your brain can convince your body that it is healed." Mania planted his feet and shuffled his body toward his contemporaries. Tempo, Professor Anarchy, and Celsius were nearly on their feet by this point, impressing the skull-faced psychologist.

"Your brain can also convince your body that it feels pain. The Hades Realm is one big sugar pill, one big placebo. Your bodies are all still in the waiting room, as is mine. In reality, our consciousnesses have all been transferred into the realm." Mania drew a pistol from inside his shadowy cloak and pointed it directly at Professor Anarchy's head. "Say I pull the trigger right now... The bullet will not harm your real body, but your brain believes it does. Therefore, your body in the real world will perish." Mania holstered his weapon, pacing a few steps before stopping in front of the trio of Tempo, Celsius, and Professor Anarchy who'd finally gotten back to their feet.

"Good. I see Tempo, Celsius, and Professor Anarchy seem to have the backbone to proceed. I suggest you find a way to function inside of my domain as your next step. As for the rest of you, if you want to live, I suggest you stop being weak, coasting by through others' success. Fixer, Novacaine, and Flora. You three have done nothing! As suspected, you three, along with Lady Luck, can't even push through a simple gravity increase. You're all pathetic."

As Mania continued scolding the four who failed to stand, Professor Anarchy's body began to crackle and lightning started to emanate off of his body, encasing it with a cobalt aura. The Professor began stepping onward, away from his peers without looking back. It appeared as if he were walking with weights around his arms and legs, but he was moving nonetheless. This inspired Celsius to transform as he did during his battle with Blaze, turning his entire body into ice. Though he could feel gravity applying pressure to his body, Celsius relied on momentum to push his body. He'd expel ice from his palms to propel himself whilst expelling a thin layer of ice from his feet to slide forward, leaving both a trail of ice and Tempo behind.

Meanwhile, Tempo could feel himself growing frustrated. His peers were adjusting to their mental prison as if it were second nature, yet there he was making not an inch of progress. 'Damn it!' he thought to himself, watching as both the Professor and Celsius started moving with even more freedom as every moment passed, all the while his feet remained planted in one spot. 'I can't do anything like that…Can I?' Tempo's eyes scanned through his abilities, which were seen in the corner of his visual field, and they widened upon Tempo forming a hypothesis.

'Temporal Cloak.' Tempo remembered the times he'd used the Temporal Cloak to control the skeletal systems of his enemies, namely Spectre and the Coroner. 'If I use it on myself, what happens? I don't understand the science behind it, but when I speed up time around an object, it seemingly moves with more force. Like when I threw that rock at the tree, it chipped it. I guess there's only one way to find out.'

Tempo lifted his mask to reveal his own teeth and placed a single finger on a molar. Mania, with his face hidden, stared blankly at the time manipulator while Infinite raised a brow. From the outside, sticking one's finger into one's own mouth was quite odd; however, for the time warper, the implications were somewhat horrifying. He hadn't tried this ability on himself, he was too afraid to. 

Until this very moment.

[Temporal Cloak]

Instantly, Tempo could feel an aching sensation spread throughout his entire jaw, only to then make its way down his spinal cord and diffuse through his entire skeletal system. "AAAH!" Tempo released an earsplitting bellow, falling down to one knee as every single inch of his body trembled. 'So this is how it feels?' He had no memories of what he'd done to the Coroner after he'd applied his Temporal Cloak to him, but the amount of pain that Ky was experiencing at this very moment had him thinking that just this was nearly torture in its own right. Though in the case of the Coroner, he deserved far worse.

Regardless of the excruciating agony– the feeling of skin being pried from bone– Tempo pushed through it all. 'I don't give a DAMN how bad it hurts! This is to become stronger. This is to live! I'm humanity's last hope, right? Then get the fuck up!' Tempo yet again unleashed an anguished-fueled roar, rebelling against the 2Gs of force that once weighed him down. 

Team New York, broad-eyed and breathless, watched as Tempo planted both feet on the ground and stood tall as if there wasn't anything weighing him down. Every movement of his felt as if he were being propelled at double the force and since he was under 2Gs of pressure, his body might as well have been moving under Earth's true gravitational pull.

His distorted face was hidden beneath his black mask, as were his bulging veins and trembling muscles under his fantastical suit. Nonetheless, he was on his feet– ready to face his rival in a proper one-on-one. "Celsius!" Tempo called out to his rival with a harsh, petulant roar. Celsius was already frozen in front of Tempo, both literally and figuratively, staring at the time manipulator with an icy furrowed brow. 'What did he do to himself?' the ice manipulator wondered, seeing Ky's glowing white eyes wincing through the torture. He assumed it was a transformation much like his own, but he was curious about what exactly this transformation entailed.

"You wanted a rematch, Celsius? Here's your rematch!"