A crack like the sound of a whip resounded, and West blurred forward.

Oh fuck…

Just barely, Brock’s eyes could make out the beast’s movement; the greatsword hissing through the air. The edge tinged by red. If not for the Vial of Combat he’d been so graciously lent, it would have been an attack that was impossible to avoid. But avoid it he did.

His legs flexed and he dove out of the way, pinpricks of pain erupting all over his body as the blade obliterated the road and pelted him with tiny stones. Without missing a beat, Brock hit the ground and rolled, easily adopted a position that faced the monster. His arm flashed out, and his chain-knife sliced through the air.

With a thump and a spray of gore, the blade carved through the werewolf’s flesh and found itself lodged within his chest. Hope flared within Brock’s gut.

I… I can do this…

He breathed out and his free hand whipped around and grasped the chain. His other joined it. With all the immense might he could temporarily muster, Brock tugged. His veins bulged and his bones ached, but it succeeded, and the werewolf stumbled, his next attack disrupted. His sword razed the earth off a few meters away from where Brock was.

Revealing his yellowed fangs in an approximation of a grin, West tore the blade from his chest and cast it aside. It slid back into Brock’s hand. Instantly, the beast shifted his stance and brought his sword blurring across in a horizontal sweep, one aimed at being unavoidable.

The very atmosphere seemed to squeal at its passage.

“…Oh shit.”

Time was everything here, and as the weapon approached and Brock found no distance he could run before the blade would pass through him, he gritted his teeth. And he jumped. His feet felt air surge past them as the greatsword sliced underneath, and feeling relief ease his tense shoulders, he landed and fell to the ground.

The sword slammed into the earth several meters away and came to a stop. That was luck-

As he regained his bearings, a foot slammed into his stomach. Brock’s world seemed to stall as the force finally caught up and blood spewed from his lips. Then it lurched wildly as he exploded backwards. His limp body crashed through building after building until his moment was spent and he finally found himself lying in a pile of rubble a few streets over.

…Ouch…

If not for the ‘Vial of Combat’ he had been given by his opponent, Brock had no doubt he would have been mangled beyond repair by that attack. Waiting to bleed out and hoping to die was probably the fate that would have awaited him.

Slowly though, he rose to his feet. His body was sore down to the bone, and he was once again littered with a tapestry of bruises and cuts, but Brock was alive.

And he was still in the fight. The air hissed.

Brock ran.

His legs pumped with all the fervour of a hungry cheetah as he crested the doorway of the building’s remains and spun around. A monstrous figure and his blade collided with the structure and continued straight through it. A small shockwave made Brock take a step back, and the building quickly shuddered and fell.

“You have a warrior’s spirit, human.” Rubble flew, and the beast’s form revealed itself. West laughed joyously and hefted readied his weapon. His powerful legs let him charge out from the rubble effortlessly.

Brock was instantly met with a thrust, and he rolled to the side, savouring the cool air that buffeted his clothes. While the wolf recovered from his attack, Brock twisted in place and lashed out, his dagger scoring a shallow gash across the monster’s arm. Blood spurted onto his cheek.

He leapt back a few steps as a clawed hand attempted to snatch him up, “Uh… thanks? I guess?”

While he wasn’t really sure how to respond to that and was rather miffed about the whole ‘let’s kill each other for some reason’ scenario, he found himself feeling rather amiciable toward the wolf. Which he knew was weird.

West, on the other hand, didn’t seem weighed down by any of that. Simply, he stepped forward and twisted, coverting his thrust into a spinning whirlwind, sending wind ruffling Brock’s hair. His reddened edge created what looked to be a crimson hurricane of brutal force, and it crept ever closer to Brock.

He must have thought I was closer…

Knowing it was foolish to attempt to attack while he was doing that, Brock instead retreated and decided to wait for the beast to tire himself out. It took a few moments, but the maelstrom finally ceased. A greatsword flew from the swirling red. Brock’s eyes widened.

Cursing, he braced the flat of his extended balde with his hands and gritted his teeth as he prepared for impact. A metallic boom resounded, and Brock shot backwards, colliding through the bottom floor of the building behind him and exiting out onto another street. He rolled along with his momentum and managed to return to his feet.

His eyes wandered over to the sword embedded in the earth only ten meters from him.

I think… were evenly matched? Kind of.

It was strange to consider the boost from the Vial as his own strength in this fight, but for all intents and purposes, he felt he was West’s equal in Stat values. Although, that didn’t speak for skill, to which Brock knew the werewolf’s far outmatched his own. The only solace he found was the fact that the nature of his weapon allowed him to avoid meeting the beast head-on.

A shower of rubble inundated the mossy asphalt as the opponent in question charged through the building, and Brock’s eyebrows furrowed as he saw a hand outstretched in his direction.

He felt a pulse of energy in the air, one reminiscent of the one belonging to his Augment. His eyes widened, and he forced himself to the side. A crimson storm of microscopic slashes ravaged the area he’d left in his wake. The sound of asphalt being sliced to a million pieces left a chill running down his spine.

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It was more a feeling than any visual confirmation, as he didn’t possess a microscope, and Brock was more than happy with that. He had no intent to test the true nature of that strange ability. I’m fucked if that hits me.

‘Tsking’ as his attack missed its elusive target, West reached out and gripped his sword once more. With a tug, he pulled it from the ground and quickly brought it across to deflect the chain-knife zipping toward his head. It cut a small gouge in the old lengths of the blade but otherwise left it no worse for wear.

‘Tsking’ right back as his own attack was so effortlessly discarded, Brock’s weapon slid back into his grasp and he dashed forward to met his opponent. An overhead swing met his arrival, and Brock dodged. A counter of his own followed, scoring a wound. West’s blade sliced past him, and blood dribbled from the small gash upon his cheek.

West snarled with excitement, “This is certainly a fight I’ll remember, human. Rejoice.”

“Can you not see the rejoicement on my face?” Brock responded, his face entirely still. The tinge of sarcasm was hidden by his rugged panting.

The wolf twisted, and Brock slid under the attack, using the opening left behind to spin and plant his red-hot blade into the monster’s ribs. He grabbed the handle tight and jerked it downward, carving a massive wound as a hand came across and battered him away. Brock skimmed over the road, and returned to his feet, bleeding from a fresh few scrapes.

His opponent, on the other hand, jumped back and nursed the sizeable incision upon his ribcage. Brock hadn’t been strong enough to carve through the ribs, but still, it was bleeding freely. Brock recalled his weapon before the wolf could grab it.

West hefted his weapon onto his shoulders once again. Blood was seeping from the wound and past his fingers as he tried to stem the flow, “Tell me, human, what is your name?”

Brock wiped some of the blood dripping from his mouth away as he heaved for air, “Brock… Carter. You?”

His opponent froze for a second, as though he couldn’t remember his own name. Soon though, he settled and his tone carried an odd joviality, “You may call me Ur’Khan. The name West is merely a geographical moniker given by the Brood-Mother.”

Gripping his dagger, Brock nodded in West’s – no, Ur’Khan’s – direction, acknowledging both his name and his words. Then he shot forward, continuing their battle.

Left, right, up, down, forward, back. Brock and his foe dodged and danced, scoring small hits on each other among the more gruesome ones, some showering the other in blood, some utterly obliterating the environment around them. Only a few minutes had passed since the battle began, and already, Brock realised that they had levelled several streets to the ground.

Well, more accurately, his opponent had.

Brock sidestepped a thrust from Ur’Khan, feeling the air pressure slash at his face as he moved into the werewolf’s guard and tore a bloody gash up his forearm. Ur’Khan responded to the attack in kind, batting Brock away into a preestablished pile of rubble with his wounded arm.

It was immediately followed by a brutal overhead swing.

Brock frantically rolled out the way, suffering an explosion of stone and dust as it smacked across his body. The area was obscured in grey, but the beast was large enough that he cast a silhouette.

From the limited cover provided, a blade flew out and embedded itself into his foe’s thigh. For good measure, Brock grasped the chain and whipped it, widening the seared but strangely un-cauterised wound.

Growling low, Ur’Kahn didn’t even bother to tear out the smaller blade, and instead focused upon his own weapon that was residing within the earth. He grunted with exertion and forced to the side, battering Brock away with both the flat of his blade and a tidal wave of stone.

Nice try.

Contrary to what the wolf would have expected, however, the dagger didn’t return to Brock as he tried to dodge. It was the other way around. Surprised by the development, the monster didn’t react fast enough as his opponent zoomed toward him and landed with a skid.

Breathing out and unable to believe that actually worked, Brock slid around a haphazard slash of the beast’s claws and tore his blade free. He glanced at the claws as they passed him by and met nothing. The very air seemed to be torn to molecular shreds at their passage.

Unwilling to let this chance inside his guard go to waste, Brock responded with an supernatural attack of his own. His hand reached out and a burst of superheated energy exploded outward, blinding him momentarily. Waiting for his squinted eyes to adjust properly, the Augment tore into the flesh and bone of the wolf’s knee.

Its fur charred and its skin bubbled as the flame ravaged the monster’s joint and made him snarl in agony.

Gazing at the radiance of the flame, its originator felt like it all just… clicked, and he could begin to glimpse the truth of his Augment. It was hot and hungry, but it was also unwillingly gluttonous, forced to consume to survi-

Brock barely understood what had happened as his body folded over the blunt edge of Ur’Kahn’s greatsword and an upsurge of blood exploded past his lips. He felt his insides become utterly pulverized from the raw power behind the swing, and he shot backwards.

The world was a blur of colours and pain as he soared, his body spiralling dozens of times a second before he finally slammed into the earth hundreds of meters from his opponent.

Oh… fuck…

His body in its entirety was consumed by unadulterated agony as Brock felt the literal soup of his organs forcefully spill out of his mouth. His arm was twisted in a direction it wasn’t meant to go, and he couldn’t feel his lower body, despite being able to wiggle his toes.

Gasping for air, he looked up as his foe approached in the distance.

He was slightly obscured by the haze of dust residing in the area, but Ur’Khan seemed to be forced to limp the gap between them, his knee a molten mess of ashy bone and liquified flesh, a smouldering hole running clean through the joint. His arm too, dangled limply at his side, the shoulder clearly bulging and dislocated, probably from the irregular angle of the swing.

He was littered with a plethora of other wounds, all of which were bleeding profusely and staining his fur a darker black, showing Brock that the timer on his life had already been set and was quickly ticking down.

The man’s Vitality was pushing itself to the brink of its usefulness, even with the overwhelming assistance of the boost it was under the influence of. But it was enough to keep Brock alive. He had seen better days, and he didn’t know how much longer he’d last like this, but for now, he would keep kicking it, at least until his grievously injured body gave out.

Come on…

Shakily, Brock willed himself to stand. Pain exploded through his nerves and he vomited out stream after stream of his pulverized innards. But he finally got to his feet. His eyes met Ur’Kahn’s and they flared with defiance. The wolf’s own simply held respect.

Brock kept himself steady with a handful of deep breaths as his opponent finally hobbled to a halt, stopping only ten meters from him.

“You… are a true warrior… Brock Carter…” the beast coughed up blood as he spoke, seeming to be barely resisting the urge to fall to his knees. He looked frail now. Weak, “You have earned… my respect. And humanity… is lucky to have a fighter… such as yourself…”

Without saying much more, the werewolf finally did fall to the ground, his breathing feeble as his life slowly seeped into the ground, “…Please… let me die by the blade…”

Shuddering in a strange mix of both sadness and relief, Brock stumbled across the distance and approached his lauded foe. He was the being who had given him a fight that he certainly could say he truly enjoyed, despite the danger and pain rife throughout. He’d never seek to do it again, but it was… fun.

He felt his limbs shake with exertion, although the pain was negligible. By now, most pains had become a dull sensation in Brock’s body from overexposure, allowing him to focus better during combat. Right now, it was a blessing.

Smiling meekly down toward the being that Brock had found to respect in turn, an odd sense of comradery budding between them, he brought his blade high overhead. He jaw clenched.

He didn’t want to do it.

“It was… it was a good fight. Worthy of a true warrior.” He said gazing right into the dull red eyes of his foe.

Ur’Khan smiled back, closing his eyes, “Indeed it was.”

Brock’s jaw clenched so hard he feared his teeth might shatter, and he forced himself to swing his dagger downwards. The infused blade entered the temple of his opponent, and with a single shudder, he went limp. His chest fell one last time. It didn’t rise again.

With an overwhelming sense of loss, Brock cradled his head in his hands, once more alone within the urban jungle. A deafening silence fell over the area.

Amidst the dust and destruction, a single tear slid down Brock’s cheek.