A few minutes later, I was approached by another man who led me into a side room where I was supposed to get ready for my upcoming fight. It was a small room with a single chair, and on the chair was a pair of black shorts.
“You can change in here,” the man said. “I’ll come get you when it’s time for you to go on.”
The man left me alone, and I started to strip off. I didn’t question any of what was happening. I just knew this was all part of the Trial, however bizarre it all seemed.
Just do the fight and get it over with, I kept telling myself. Then track down that Drifter bastard and kill him.
I was still seething over what I was made to do to my father. It was a horrid fucking trick to pull on me. Disgusting. But what else could I expect, given the circumstances I was in?
All part of the game, right?
“Yeah, right.”
I stripped off my clothes and realized I stank to high heaven. My body was filthy, covered in stale sweat, dried blood, and god knows what else. I was going to look like some hobo pulled off the street when I walked out there.
“Fuck it, who cares,” I muttered. The assholes in the crowd probably wouldn’t. Though my opponent might when they tried to grapple me. Shit, the tech would probably work in my favor.
Shaking my head, I slipped on the black shorts, and then stood staring at myself in the full length mirror hanging on the grimy wall. It was crazy how much my body had changed in such a short time. My muscles were bigger, swollen to near body-builder proportions, but also dense and hard, the veins running through them like cables. It made me wonder how much bigger I could actually get as my strength stat increased. Was there a limit to the size I could get, or would I just keep growing like the goddamn Hulk? I had no idea.
After bouncing around for a minute or two, I decided to put on the yellow Bulk Hogan Holder over my shorts, because why not. I also slipped my fingerless leather gloves on as well.
Fuck it, I thought. It’s not like this is the fucking UFC or anything.
It was a damn shithole roadhouse, and I doubted it abided by any ‘rules’. If I was going out there, I at least wanted to keep some of my combat abilities.
“Some things never change,” I said to my reflection in the mirror, unable to believe I was about to take part in a cage fight of all things. Before, I probably would’ve thought this was some sort of twisted fate, or the universe telling me something. But now… now I knew better. This wasn’t some cosmic coincidence. This was engineering, pure and simple. The showrunners knew every detail about my past life, and they were engineering the Trial to make it personalized toward me. Giving me a chance to shine, perhaps. Or more likely, twisting things to set me up for a fall.
Bastards, If they thought they could bring me down that easily, they didn’t know me as well as they thought. As my dad used to say about surprises, “They’re only weapons if you let yourself be caught off guard. Turn them into opportunities, and suddenly you’re the one holding the sword.”
Shit. He sure proved that earlier.
I stared at myself in the mirror, hardly recognizing the man who stared back at me, with eyes full of rage and shame and bitter sadness.
My father had sacrificed himself to make sure I got this far.
I wouldn’t let him down.
The guy from earlier came walking into the room. “You ready?” he asked, as if this was just another Saturday night.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said, rolling my massive shoulders. “Lead the way.”
I followed the guy out of the room, and the crowd immediately began cheering as I made my way to the makeshift ‘cage’ in the center of the roadhouse. People clapped me on the back, shouting for me to “fucking destroy the guy!” and to “rip his fucking throat out and eat it!”
Jesus, if you say so, guy…
The cage was empty when I walked in, except for the announcer, who looked like a biker wearing a tuxedo.
No referee. Figures.
The ring announcer gave my name out as I walked in. “Kade ‘The Smasher’ Dalton!”
No idea where they got the smasher part from. I didn’t have a nickname back on Earth. Clearly, they just decided to make one up for me in this place.
As I moved around the ring, limbering up, I struggled to find the focus I normally had in these situations. In the cage, I could normally block things out and zero in on that laser focus I knew I would need to win the fight. But despite my best efforts, my mind wouldn’t settle. I kept thinking about my dad, his busted up face… about my hands around his throat as I squeezed the remaining life from him.
Fuck…
With the faces in the crowd staring at me, I suddenly felt vulnerable. The cage seemed to close in around me as panic threatened to turn me into a quivering wreck.
I stopped moving, standing completely still as everything else seemed to spin around me at a rapid rate, the faces of the crowd blurring into one ugly, screaming face.
Then, just when I thought I was about to faint from the overwhelming stress, my dad’s voice cut through the noise, sounding in my head clear as day.
“Son, what happened between us... that wasn’t you killing me. That was me protecting you one last time. I chose to make you stronger by making you face the hardest thing imaginable. Now take that strength into this fight. Block out these vultures and their circus - find that stillness inside you. You’ve got ice in your veins, Kade, always have had. Let it cool you down, let it steady your hands. I didn’t raise a killer - I raised a survivor. Now survive.”
The words settled over me like a cold shower, shocking at first, then clarifying. My breathing, which had been coming in sharp, panicked gasps, began to slow. The roar of the crowd faded to white noise as I focused on each deliberate inhale and exhale.
Ice in your veins.
I rolled my shoulders back, feeling the familiar tension there - not the desperate, choking grip of anxiety anymore, but the clean, purposeful tension of a fighter preparing for battle. My hands, which had been trembling slightly, steadied as I clenched and unclenched them.
Survive.
The cage wasn't closing in anymore. It was just what it had always been—a workspace. My workspace. The blurred, screaming face of the crowd separated back into individual spectators, none of them mattering any more than the canvas beneath my feet. They were just part of the scenery.
I found my stance—loose, ready, the way I'd done a thousand times before. The noise, the guilt, the manipulation of the showrunners... all of it was still there, but now it was on the other side of a wall of ice. Let them try to break through. Right now, in this moment, I was exactly what I needed to be.
A survivor.
It was time to go to work.
“And now,” the ring announcer said in that exaggerated voice they all do, “please welcome his opponent—the dark destroyer, the king of smash, the putrid pulverizer… Kade ‘The Ripper’ Dalton!”
What the fuck?
I frowned at the announcer, thinking he must’ve made a mistake.
But then my opponent came walking through the crowd, heading for the cage like some predatory animal. He wore a black robe, the hood of which covered his head. The crowd mostly booed him, though he didn’t seem to care.
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The way he moved seemed deeply familiar to me, though I didn’t want to admit that as I watched the guy walk into the cage, his hood still covering his face.
The robed fighter stood opposite me a few feet away, head bowed, and then suddenly whipped off the black robe, his head coming up to look at me.
My jaw dropped as I stared at him.
It was… me.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, a frenzy of emotions all running through me at once as the crowd got whipped into a frenzy by the ring announcer.
My ‘opponent’ looked exactly like me, right down to the large birth mark on his chest.
The only thing was, he seemed… dead.
His skin was a sickly bluish-black, the color of a corpse left to rot in the sun. Veins of darkness spread beneath his skin like tendrils of decay, and parts of his body appeared to be rotten, the flesh sunken and discolored. His eyes glowed with an eerie reddish light, like embers burning in the depths of a long-dead soul.
But the most striking differences were the claws and teeth. His fingernails had grown into long, jagged talons, the color of obsidian and sharp as razors. When he snarled at me, his lips pulled back to reveal rows of pointed, shark-like teeth, stained and yellowed, dripping with saliva that looked like pus.
He was me, but twisted, corrupted, a dark reflection of the man I was. A rotting, monstrous version of myself, brought to life by the sick minds who designed this Trial.
The crowd was in a frenzy, their cheers and jeers filling the air like a cacophony of madness. The ring announcer had left the cage, leaving just the two of us, the two Kades, to face off against each other. I could see the anticipation in the spectators’ eyes—the bloodlust, the desire to see us tear each other apart.
My doppelgänger circled me, his movements fluid and predatory in spite of his decayed state, his glowing red eyes never leaving mine. I mirrored his movements, my heart pounding in my chest, my mind racing. I had no idea what to expect, no idea how to fight this… thing.
“I’m gonna rip you limb from limb,” he growled, his voice shockingly like mine. “You’re gonna wish your daddy had killed you.”
Nice. Real fucking nice. Whoever scripted that line needed to burn in fucking Hell. Bastards.
Alright, I thought as I circled warily around the Ripper. It’s just another monster, even if it does look like me. We got this, we fucking got t—
He came at me suddenly, his claws slashing through the air with a feral snarl. I barely had time to react, throwing myself to the side as his talons raked across my chest. I hissed in pain, feeling the warm rush of blood as four deep gashes opened up across my pecs. The crowd roared in approval, their bloodlust growing as the first blood was drawn.
I quickly regained my footing, my heart pounding in my chest as I tried to stay calm. He grinned at me, his teeth bared in a grotesque parody of a smile, my blood dripping from his claws.
“Come on, Kade,” he taunted. “You can do better than that. Or are you still the same pathetic drunk who watched his mother die from cancer?”
A growl tore from my throat, and I launched myself at him, my fists flying. I landed a solid punch to his jaw, the force of the impact enhanced by my combat abilities and the gloves I was wearing. His head snapped back, but he recovered quickly, his claws slashing out in a vicious counterattack. I managed to block some of the blows with my forearms, but others landed, tearing into my flesh, leaving deep, ragged wounds.
I retaliated with a swift kick, my foot connecting with his stomach with a satisfying thud. The force of the impact sent him staggering back, the air whooshing out of his lungs. The crowd cheered, their excitement growing as the fight intensified. I pressed my advantage, landing a series of quick, precise kicks, each one enhanced by my ‘Van Damme it to Hell’ ability, driving him back toward the edge of the cage.
Get him against the wire and then fucking pulverize him—
But the Ripper wasn’t going to allow that. With a roar, he lunged at me, his claws raking across my face, narrowly missing my eyes. I stumbled back, blood pouring from the wounds, my vision blurring. He pressed his advantage, his attacks coming fast and furious, a relentless onslaught of claws and teeth and fists.
I struggled to keep up, my Health Bar dropping rapidly as his blows landed, each one more brutal than the last. I could feel my strength waning, my body growing weaker as the fight took its toll. The Ripper, sensing my weakness, grew more confident, his attacks more vicious.
“You’re pathetic, Kade,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “Your sister was right about you. You’re nothing but a useless drunk, a joke. You couldn’t save your mother, couldn’t save your father either, and now you can’t save yourself!”
The onslaught continued as he battered and tore at me, pausing only to bring up all my past failings, all the insecurities he seemed to know intimately.
I fought back, but my attacks were weak, my defenses sloppier. The Ripper seized the opportunity, his claws tearing into my side, his teeth sinking into my shoulder. I cried out in agony, my Health Bar flashing red, sitting at just 12%.
The crowd was in a frenzy, their screams and cheers filling the air, the smell of blood and sweat thick and cloying. I could feel my consciousness fading, my body on the verge of collapse.
This fucker is gonna kill me if I don’t do something—
“You think I’m a failure, a fuck up?” I said, the words half garbled as they fell from my busted mouth.
The Ripper hesitated slightly as he went to attack me again, my words seeming to give him pause. The bastard was me, after all, and that meant I knew him better than anyone.
“What about you?!” I screamed over the noise of the crowd, my voice raw and filled with a sudden, intense emotion. The Ripper hesitated, his claws poised to strike, but something in my eyes gave him pause. I saw it—a flicker of uncertainty, a moment of doubt. And I pressed my advantage, the words tumbling from my lips like a dark, shameful secret. “You could’ve ended Mom’s suffering. She was in so much pain and she begged you to end it. You, Kade. All she wanted was peace, an end to the pain, and you couldn’t do it, could you? Could you?!”
The Ripper stood there, frozen, his eyes filled with a horrified realization as even the crowd fell silent. He saw it now, the truth, the dark, shameful secret I had never told anyone. The secret that had eaten away at me, that had haunted my dreams and filled my waking moments with guilt and self-loathing.
“She suffered for weeks after!” I shouted, as tears streamed down my face. “And all because you were a fucking coward!”
My doppelgänger staggered back like he’d been hit by a sledgehammer, his guard falling.
With a roar, I summoned the last of my strength, the last of my will. I activated Hulk Up, feeling a surge of power coursing through my veins, my muscles swelling massively, my voice growing deeper. “It’s time to kill, brother!” I shouted, the catchphrase echoing through the roadhouse, the crowd suddenly going wild again.
I launched myself at the Ripper, my fists flying, my kicks landing with bone-crushing force. I felt his ribs crack under the onslaught, his breath coming in ragged gasps. I drove him back, my attacks relentless, my strength unyielding. I could feel his body weakening, his defenses crumbling under the sheer force of my assault.
Everything narrowed to a tunnel of red mist, with only his body at the end of it as my target. My fists flew without thought or strategy, each impact sending jolts of savage satisfaction up my arms. His ribs cracked under my onslaught and the sound was like music, like permission to go further.
I wasn't fighting anymore—I was a force of nature, a storm of violence given human form. Each ragged gasp he made just fed the furnace inside me. His weakening defenses weren't victory signs, they were invitations to hurt him more. More. MORE.
All that mattered was the next hit, the next chance to destroy. My strength wasn't just unyielding—it was building, feeding on itself, each successful strike making me hungrier for the next.
I could feel his body breaking beneath my assault, and still it wasn't enough. The monster inside of me demanded more, needed more. My opponent was just a shape to be shattered, a vessel for all the rage that was burning through my veins like molten metal.
I wasn't Kade anymore. I was wrath incarnate, and I wanted nothing but devastation.
With one final move, I leapt into the air, my body spinning in a perfect, devastating roundhouse kick. My foot connected with his head as the last of the Hulk Up power surged through me. I heard the sickening crunch of bone, saw his head snap back, his body crumpling to the floor.
The crowd erupted, their screams and cheers filling the air, the roadhouse shaking with the force of their excitement.
My doppelgänger was down, but unbelievably, he wasn’t out yet. My body was so exhausted, so pulverized, I could hardly stand. I fell on top of the other Kade, landing on my knees, straddling him. Then I began to land punch after punch on his face. “You’re not me!” I screamed at him as his face obliterated under my knuckles. “You’re just a fucked-up shadow… a pathetic echo… and I’m the real fucking deal. I’m the real Kade fucking Dalton!”
I put everything I had into my last punch, every ounce of strength I had left, every shred of guilt and shame that had been festering within me. I channeled it all into that final, devastating blow, a scream tearing from my throat as I unleashed my fury. The punch was a culmination of every failure, every regret, every moment of pain and despair I had ever experienced. It was a reckoning, a release, a final, brutal exorcism of the demons that had haunted me for so long.
My fist connected with the Ripper’s face with a force that seemed to shake the very foundations of the roadhouse. The impact was cataclysmic, a shockwave of pure, unadulterated power that sent a shudder through the air. The sound was sickening, a wet, crunching noise that echoed through the cage, drowning out the roar of the crowd.
Time seemed to slow as I watched the devastating effect of my punch. The doppelgänger’s skull crumpled under the impact, the bones shattering like glass, the flesh tearing and splitting like rotten fruit. His eyes, those glowing red orbs that had mocked and taunted me, bulged and then burst, spraying a grotesque mixture of blood and viscera across the cage.
His head literally smashed in two, the top half shearing off in a spray of blood and brain matter, the bottom half hanging by a few ragged tendons and strips of flesh. The force of the punch sent the top half of his skull flying through the air, spinning like a macabre top before it hit the cage wall with a wet thud and slid to the floor, leaving a trail of gore in its wake.
And then finally, the Ripper’s body went still—a lifeless, broken shell, the remnants of his shattered skull leaking blood and brain matter onto the cage floor.
The crowd fell silent for a moment, the shock of the brutal, gruesome spectacle rendering them speechless. And then, as if released from a spell, they erupted into a frenzy of cheers and screams, their bloodlust sated, their thirst for violence quenched.
For now.
Congratulations!
3/3 challenges completed!
You may now face the Drifter!
The announcer came into the ring and lifted me up. I could hardly stand at that point, my Health at a scary 1%. My arm was raised into the air.
“And the winner is... Kade ‘The Smasher’ Dalton!”