Alex couldn't help but smile as the energy of his gate shot through his body in bursts. The electricity tickled through his body from his heart, and he felt like he could take on anything. Mister Deadman glared him down, the man's eyes still hidden by his tilted forward hat.

"You think you're cool, I see," Mister Deadman said. "Taking my Bone Shot without a care in the world. I'm not going to stand for it, you hear? Bone Barrage."

Mister Deadman raised both hands from his side, pointing them at Alex and miming shots in the air. Alex had a fraction of a second to react. He hadn't pushed his ability to its furthest yet and wanted to see what his new curse could do.

"Steel Wall!"

Ting. Ding. Ting. Ding.

The steel disks disappeared as Alex rolled forward. A blue light appeared before him as a small wall caught his shoulder. The bone bullet barrage crashed against the metal, ringing out into the empty night as the shots went wild. Alex kept his head down behind the wall. It was large enough to cover about half his body up to his waist, but it wasn't bigger than that. He would need to keep that in mind.

The ringing faded to echoes in moments as Alex hid behind his barrier. So far, Mister Deadman appeared to be able to shoot bones out of his body. Alex knew from Bargen's story that there was another technique, something that could drag people down into the ground.

"Bone Yard."

That was it. Alex took in a breath, throwing one hand over the barrier and tossing himself in the air. As he pushed up with a magnetic shove, he saw five bony arms shoot out from the ground where he had been to grab at him. Thankfully, Alex was far away from that, shooting up into a spin in the air like a bullet in an arc over Mister Deadman.

Alex released his hold on the wall and swung his fist. Below, the wall would fade away, and beside his hand, another spark of electricity formed as he called a piece of metal into existence. A long metal spike, about the length of his forearm, formed beside his hand as he punched down toward Mister Deadman below.

"Rail Gun!"

He had lost his ironwood staff back on Glory Plateau when Lucien had shattered it, and he had missed using his favorite technique. He had tried replacing it with coins, naming the new technique 'Rail Shot,' but the coins didn't have near the mass he needed to do real damage.

His steel spike shot down like a bullet, following the arc of his punch right at Mister Deadman's face. Mister Deadman raised his hand as the attack came, and Alex knew as he fell to the ground that the man already had a response to it.

"Bone Wall."

Two bones jutted out of the ground, as tall as Mister Deadman himself, before smaller links of white bone shot in between them. In an instant, a solid white wall made of bone crafted itself together, linking the two pillars together.

Bang. Crack.

The wall shuddered under the speed of the strike, the bone cracking outward like it was on an active fault line. However, the wall held with the spike embedded in it as Alex fell to the ground in a roll. He came up on his feet, facing down Mister Deadman as the man turned on him, his hand readjusting his hat to cover his eyes.

"You think you're cool," Mister Deadman said, shaking his hand with a sly smile. "But I won't have this, you hear? It would be so uncool if I couldn't beat down a twerp like you. Bone Scythe."

Alex's gate hummed with electricity as Mister Deadman raised his hand. A long white pole appeared from his hand, extending out as long as Mister Deadman's body. Two curved blades shot out from both ends, going in opposite directions. Mister Deadman twirled the two-bladed scythe in his hands. He brought it behind his back, switching hands and swinging it through the air.

"Just shooting and grabbing doesn't seem to work on you, you hear?" Mister Deadman said as he practically danced with the weapon. "It looks like I'm going to have to make this fight a little more personal."

Alex really missed his staff, but he had a better weapon now. He reached out his arm, focusing as blue electric light sparked around it. The flow of aether into his gate became a gale as he called the metal into existence around his arm.

"Junk Arm."

"Death's Advance."

Ding.

Mister Deadman came for him as his arm formed, and Alex brought up the long metal arm in a defense hold in front of him. Metal met bone as the scythe came for him in a downward cut. Alex's feet were forced back into the dirt from the blow, and he grunted as he held the attack back.

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Mister Deadman was strong. Alex had fought plenty of people as strong or stronger than himself, and he would rate the man at least at a lieutenant's strength, if not a captain's. Part of him regretted calling Mister Deadman two-bit earlier.

"I take it back," Alex said as Mister Deadman pushed harder against his arm. "You're not a two-bit thug. You're a three-bit thug. Junk Arm."

Alex stepped forward, pushing with his arm and throwing Mister Deadman off. He spun with his left arm and called another junk arm into existence along his left side. A spike of pain shot through his mind, but he pushed past it as he swung his left hand around.

"Steel Swing."

Clatter.

Mister Deadman brought his scythe around to catch Alex's arm and vault over it. He came down with a heavy swing immediately after, and Alex had nowhere to go. He was already committed to the hit. The scythe's blade cut down through his arm. Mister Deadman came down to his knees from the force of the attack.

"Bone Slice."

Shing. Crack.

Separation was all Alex felt for a moment as his metal arm fell away from his body and landed on the ground. Then came the pain. It was like he had touched his shoulder with a live electric wire and couldn't move. All he could do was stand there and focus his mind on the blindingly bright sensation that ran through him.

"Now, be cool," Mister Deadman said as he stood up from his attack, swinging his dual-bladed scythe in circles around him.

Alex had no words, but his brain could react on its own. In his mind, he slammed against the wall of light that blocked his thoughts and forced more aether into his gate. The light cracked as he willed what he wanted through the pain, and blue electric sparks crackled down his left stub of an arm.

"Junk Arm."

It replaced his missing arm before blood could even flow out from it. Jagged pieces of metal fused into his flesh and sealed off the damage. The original cut arm fell to the ground, now bereft of its metal encasement, but Alex didn't care. He only needed to focus on Mister Deadman. The dark, limp arm on the ground would be a problem for later.

"Junk Barrage!"

He swung his fists together against Mister Deadman, punching faster and faster until the air around him was full of fists. Mister Deadman tried to jump back from the strike, but he was caught off guard. In a small unconscious part of his mind, Alex couldn't blame him. No one would expect someone who lost an arm to just keep on fighting.

However, this wasn't Alex's first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

His body was forged from experiments done by Doctor Ozymandius in a secret lab on August. He was built to make an artificial curse, one step in a program to create a batch of new warriors for the Scions. Alex didn't know all the details, but his designation at the lab had been WPN Nine. Before he had burned August to the ground, he had been dissected, broken apart, and put back together again more times than he could count.

And, through all that, he was still here.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Crack. Bam.

Not all of his punches hit, but they weren't supposed to. Mister Deadman was fast and dodged most of the strikes as he backed away, but it only took one mistake. Alex stepped forward in one long step as his metal fist made contact with Mister Deadman's face, carrying the punch through and sending the man flying away with his bone scythe.

Thump.

"How'd you like that?" Alex asked as he stood there, his metal arms extending out in front of him.

Mister Deadman kneeled where he landed a distance away, his bone scythe discarded beside him. The man's pinstripe suit was now dirty, but more importantly, his hat lay on the ground beside him. The man's face was pale, and his oily black hair was a matted mess on his head. However, it was the eyes that set Mister Deadman apart. His eyes were stark white with small patterns etched in them as black marks. They reminded Alex of the intricate carvings on skull masks from Dia de los Muertos.

"Now, that's just uncool," Mister Deadman said as he reached down and picked up his hat, knocking off the dust from it as he stood up and replaced it on his head. "You don't go knocking the hat off a man like that and ruining his suit by throwing him into the dirt. I'll need to keep my cool, but I'll also need to be more serious now. Can't have someone as small and uncool as you beating me down."

Rumble.

"Bone Chimera!"

He opened his arms wide and closed his eyes momentarily as the ground shook beneath him. Bones shot up from the ground all around him, rising until they were twice as tall as the statue's remains in the ruins. Alex put one hand on the ground to keep from falling over.

The bones wrapped around Mister Deadman like a rising tower. Spindly arms and bony legs came off of the growing skeletal body as it extended out across the open area of the ruins. The buildings around them shook, and some collapsed under the force of the transformation. The remains of the statue toppled to the ground and cracked into pieces.

Slam. Crack. Crumble.

Alex could only describe what had formed from the mass of bones as a gigantic scorpion. Two large pincer claws came out from the front of the body, and a long tail with a scythe came off the back. Long, spindly limbs held it up, and the carapace of it was covered in the stark white bone that had marked all of Mister Deadman's techniques. Mister Deadman stood at the center of the creature's mass, his legs entombed in bone but his upper body free. He hadn't changed in size in the slightest bit, and Alex felt he could use many of his techniques from where he stood while maintaining the giant scorpion form.

It just wasn't fair.

"You see, I was holding back all this time," Mister Deadman said as his skeletal monstrosity of a body skittered forward toward Alex. "I thought it would be cool just to handle you with my first-grade curse, but you just had to go and push it. It would be uncool for me to be angry, but I can't say I'm happy about this, you hear?"

The shadow of his scorpion form covered Alex as Mister Deadman approached, and Alex gulped down the lump in his throat. He wasn't sure he could handle Mister Deadman now. However, he also knew he couldn't let that show. He grasped his metal fists together as he looked up to Mister Deadman at the top of his scorpion body.

He needed a plan.

"You know what," Alex said, as he took in a deep breath of aether and opened his gate wider. "I changed my mind again. You're not a three-bit thug. I'm going to do you a favor and upgrade you to a five-bit thug."

"Being overconfident can be cool, in its own way," Mister Deadman said, pulling his hat down over his eyes with one hand. "But it won't look cool when you're face down on the ground dead, you hear?"

With that, one pincer shot out for Alex. The fight was on, and Alex had no idea how he would win.