I remember this place. It’s New York. I am either hallucinating so hard that my memories of earth are coming back or I am in hell.

“Hey dude, took your sweet time.” Mike, a middle aged black man with dreadlocks going all the way to his knees, which is impressive since he is 2 meters tall, in a pink suit says to me cheerfully.

I am probably in hell if this is the first thing that I am remembering.

“What was so urgent that you paid for me to get here? The dudes in Africa almost gunned me down when I said I had to leave.” I said, worried, to him. It’s strange seeing things from a third person perspective. At least this personal hell of mine isn’t showing my old body to myself or I would probably start to break mentally.

“I finally found a place where you can spend all that rage that you usually use when banging hookers and make some money for both of us.” He said to me happily.

“I am not shooting porn videos, especially for you.” I said coldly and objectively.

“Who would want to see you sorry ass on video banging chicks? Just follow me.” He said as I followed him to his car.

There weren’t many times in my life where I can say I was a total idiot, this day is one of them. I should have waited a day, if only I waited just a fucking day.

His driver went around the city for a few minutes as I updated Mike on what was happening in Africa. I was almost done cracking the slavery economy in the area he asked me to so he could go there, buy everyone and make his country. This isn’t the important part of this trip, it’s the part that comes a few hours after this.

“Nice place isn’t it?” Mike says as he shows me the underground colosseum that was somehow operating below Manhattan.

The place had everything, naked woman, naked man, drinks, drugs, gambling and of course fights to the death. In the middle of this illegal heaven there was fucking arena where people could fight as they please and everyone could bet. It even had a mock emperor for some fights.

“You want me to fight there?” I asked a little in disbelief.

“Don’t sell yourself short. I had to retire my brother after what you did to him.” Mike said to me trying to hold his laughter a little.

Mike's older brother was until a year ago his personal bodyguard. He was somehow bigger than Mike and way stronger than a human had reason to be. I saw that man take a few bullets and just heal it off.

“To be fair he tried to rape that woman.” I said while looking at the arena.

“They had to glue together almost his entire skull. I think he also developed some sort of phobia of white people, or at least you.”

“Stop lying. That man could take bullets. He can’t be afraid of me.”

“Dude, he said he saw Satan behind your eyes. Every Sunday he goes to church too. Mom is really proud of him.”

“Ok, let's stop talking about your brother. You want me to fight, to the death even. How much money are we talking about?”

“If you win against the man I want you to fight, 20 million dollars plus 10% of what I am going to bet on you.”

“You are putting a lot of faith in me Mike. You know I can’t pay you back if I lose, specially since I can fucking die if you didn’t notice.”

“I will take that as a ‘Yes’.”

“Mike I would bang a homeless man for that money. Of course it's a yes.” Yep, I was desperate for money at this point in my life. The dickless mafia of Spain was on my ass and I either paid them enough money for them to leave me alone or killed everyone. The second option wasn’t really a possibility since there was an army between me and the father of the women that slept with me when I worked for the mafia there. The stereotype of daughters of Mafia bosses going incognito to have fun was really true. At least I didn’t leave any kids behind.

Mike showed me where I should go. I registered with a strange man and was guided to the waiting room. I was in a special match. Mike had all of it prepared beforehand. So much so that I didn't have a single clue of who I was going to fight or the rules. All I saw is that weapons were forbidden in the ring.

This is the second point in the day I should have said no and just chickened out. Mike hadn't put his bet on me since the fight hadn’t actually started yet. But no, I had to be greedy.

It took around 10 minutes for the ring to be clean and my fight was announced.

“The newcomer, out of nowhere, putting his life on the line to fight our brutal champion. [blank], the giant killer.” The announcer said as I walked the corridor to the arena. Looks like I also can’t hear my old name.

“Now as all of you should know, our great champion. No one is more evil, more brutal and stronger in this arena than him, our own vampire, Magna Crimson!” The announcer shouted with immense fervor as the people on the place began to cheer.

This was the last point of the day where I could have done something. Before me appeared a man, 2.1 meters tall, pale as snow, bald as you can get, I could see that he had something done to his mouth as there were very sharp teeth coming out. But that wasn’t important, no. The important part was the little girl in chains that he was pulling along.

As soon as I saw that I looked around to find Mike and he was looking at me with the same face as I was at him. You see, the reason me and Mike got along so well is that even if we did some questionable stuff around the world we never involved children or unwilling women and actively tried to pull them away from this world. We killed people, we robbed people, we sold people, but never people in that group. Whatever this was, Mike had no idea this was happening or would have been him in the ring stead of me.

The guard accompanying me saw my look and in the most monotone he could, informed me that if I did anything before the fight he would shoot me with every gun he had.

I held my frustration and walked to the center of the arena where I met my opponent.

“Why the hell do I have to fight an accountant? My manager must be losing his mind, anyway, little shit, go do your thing, he deserves a little piece of heaven before I get to him” Magna said to me, clearly annoyed with all of this.

The girl came to me, gave me a hug, a kiss on the lips that I wasn’t prepared for and whispered something in my ear before leaving.

“Please hold on for a long time, if he is tired from fighting you he won't hurt my sister.” The girl said in a teary voice before going back to Magna. At this point I was angry, really angry. But that wasn’t the worst. I still looked calm and ready for a fight on the outside.

“Shit, you are one of those ain’t you. Guess I just bought baggage then.” He then lifted up the girl and bit the girl on the neck with such force that she died the moment he let go of her. I could see in slow motion as her body fell onto the ground and the guard just took it like trash and began to drag it away.

If there was a single moment in my old life that I could say changed me, it was this one. No, changed is the wrong word, this broke me. Before I was a somewhat normal person, after this I lost my ability to act ‘normal’ for long periods of time.

After the guards left the arena and closed the gates, it was just me and that thing that looked like a human in front of me. I was in shock, my body was trying to process what I had to do. I was angry and sad at the same time and then the fight started.

He punched me in the chest, kicked my legs and then gave me a hook on the face. I can’t say if they hurt or not because at that point I wasn’t feeling my body anymore. I like to believe that those three hits were atonement for the chances I didn’t pick to not come here today. If I had run away or not come, the girl would at least be alive. Some people told me that I couldn’t have done anything but what they didn’t know is that I know for a fact that just a day longer and that thing wouldn’t have any kids with him. I found years later that the girls were going to be sold the next day. Now back to the fight.

I didn’t fall from the hits and when he tried another punch and went in I grabbed his neck. He only had a small moment to look at me before I struck his head in a way that completely shut him down while keeping him awake. I then tossed him to the ground where I proceeded to break both his arms and legs with strength that I never managed to duplicate.

Once he became incapacitated I got close to his face and said the only thing he ever heard from me.

“From this point on this is not a fight anymore, this is a test to see how much pain I can inflict upon you before you die.” I could see fear in his face but it was not enough, he had to suffer.

I first kicked his teeth off until I had enough to nail him somewhere if I wished to. I then pierced every place I could remember on his body that would cause pain but not immediate death. Now that I am seeing this from a third person perspective I know that this went for a good 10 minutes.

After the ‘nails’ did their job I began to eliminate his senses. I took off his eyeballs, pierced his ears with my fingers, I clocked his nose with his normal teeth in a way that he couldn’t even breathe through it and then I got some of its tongue using my hands. At this point he was going to die in a few minutes, but he didn’t suffer enough in my eyes.

I grabbed him by his neck again and began to run towards the walls of the arena. As I got near it I launched him onto it. After he hit the way I got him again by the neck and began to scrape him on the walls while running. After a few minutes I stopped, took some air and began a barrage of punches on the corpse of the thing as I was fighting. Took several minutes before anyone understood that I was beating a cadaver.

3 guards and what was supposed to be enough tranquilizer to kill a normal person later they managed to drag me out of the ring as I shouted that the thing should be treated like the trash it was. This was also how I discovered my resistance or immunity to most tranquilizer or anesthetics.

“What the fuck was that you crazy fuck! Give me one reason to not unload a revolver on your ass?” I angrily shouted at Mike who came to see me in what passes for a locker room here.

“Man, I swear on my mom, my wife, my kids and on god’s name that I had no fucking idea they dealt with kids. I scouted this place from top to bottom and there was nothing. Even the owner said he didn’t deal with kids.”

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much did we make?”

“... 6 billion.”

“Buy this place.”

“Why?”

“You have no say in this. You can even use my money if you want, but buy this place.”

“S-Sure… Anything else?” He asked me, afraid.

“Bounties, 50k for each child freed, 5 million if a ring is completely stopped, 100 million if the heads of everyone who supplied that thing are in one place. Once you buy the place give discounts to any semi-regular who helps with kids. Also find every place connected to this one.”

“Man, I don’t like the look on your face, shouldn’t you get a drink or something?”

“I am going to make you drink from your ass if you try to push alcohol on me!”

Oh? Things are fading to black. Guess that's it. If I remember right Mike brought the club, we freed a number of kids in the thousands and I began to fight in those arenas to make enough money so Mike could buy them. Since I was a nobody, everywhere I went the bets were always against me. It also helped that I made a name for myself working as an accountant before going to the arenas. Nobody looked at my background due to what I did.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“So, how do you feel?” A voice asks me as everything around me turns to black.

“God, is that you?”

“No.”

“Hell is different from what I thought it would be.”

“This is not Hell.”

“Then who are you?”

“I am you.”

“Kinda hard for you to be me when I am also me.”

“I am the part that you left behind, well, the part they left behind.”

“You mean Lokir and the others?”

“Yep.”

“Where are we?”

“Fuck I know?”

“Then how are you sure we are not in Hell?”

“It's just a feeling.”

“Well, at least you feel something.”

“I noticed. You watched that too calmly.”

“So, what should we do? Play a game?”

“No you idiot, you need to come back to life.”

“If I could, I would.”

“I think that’s why I am here.”

“What are you going to do? Shout at me until I decide to revive?”

“That is one of the options.”

“You know, I wish you at least had our new body. Looking at you now you are pathetic.”

“Wait, you can see me?”

“Yes, you are a tiny little ball of light.”

“That explains some things.”

“Well, back to you needing some reviving. I think that memory is the key for you to come back.”

“Ok, what is the plan?”

“I think you need to remember how you felt there.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I saw that and let me tell you, I want to leave this place as fast as I can.”

“If you are part of me couldn’t you just merge with me or something?”

“If I do that you probably won’t revive. They took me out of you for a reason. I am the you that remembers everything.”

“I remember everything, besides the names.”

“No, you remember parts of it distorted by your mind. I am the actual truth of what you remember.”

“Like what?”

“Like how you had to hypnotize yourself to remember mom and dad to get sadder just so you couldn’t go on a murder spree or how you actually surived one of the blood pits.”

“I believe I should have a reaction to those, so… Oh!?”

“Ok, look, this memory is the most powerful memory we have because it's the only one that we both 100% remember the same way, also it's the one that made our life the way it was.”

“So?”

“Fucking try to feel how you felt before they tried to knock you out with medicine. We were ready to go to war at that point. We were the personification of wrath, how can’t you feel it?”

“Don’t think I have the means to feel.”

“You can convince yourself that you are feeling something you are not, I know, so do it.”

“Hmmm… I don’t like my situation right now.”

“Continue.”

“I also don’t like the fact I was sent to a worse place than I was before when I died.”

“Make things simpler.”

“I hate alcohol and drugs.”

“And why is that?”

“Because everyone should always be in control of what they are doing!”

“Are you in control right now?”

“FUCK NO!”

“AND WHO WE HAVE TO BLAME FOR THAT!?”

“THOSE FUCKING GODS!”

“THEN SHOUT TO THE HEAVENS YOUR ANGER!”

“YOU PROMISE A GOOD LIFE YOU FUCKWITS! NOW I AM LOSING MY SOUL! FUCK ALL OF YOU!”

“If you are so angry, go do something about it…”

“HELL YEAH! I AM COMING FOR YOUR ASSES!”

Suddenly I find myself looking at my soul again. It's pulsating, it's growing, I can feel it.

“You overgrown furries, mommy is back!” I say with a smile on my face, well, at least I think I do.

“How?” The three of them say to me as they stop fighting each other.

“Look at that, the flying chicken is back to life.” I say as I pick Yin and Yang.

“Who is that woman?” The crow-man asks the two furries.

“A dead one after we deal with you, you piece of scum.” The skinnier demon says.

“Hey, I might be a little ignorant on my part but how did you survive my fire? Do you have multiple bodies?” I ask the crow. At this point I begin to feel my body again. Everything is hurting like hell, I still have no mana and I feel my heart beating faster than I think should be possible. I believe adrenaline and this now cool anger I am feeling are the only things keeping me awake.

“That’s right, I was incomplete before. You might have destroyed part of my body and soul but I still have more than enough to eliminate all of you.” The crow answers my question with some degree of confidence. My sixth sense warns me that he isn’t being all that truthful and probably is putting a front.

“You speak like you have strength to spare. We could kill you even if you were at full power. If not for the woman we just would have waited instead of accelerating your recovery.” The bulkier demon said to the crow.

At this point I finally walked enough to be considered near enough of them to be part of their fight. Yin and Yang on my left hand, Mira rested on my shoulder while I held it with my right hand.

For a brief second we just look at each other and then the battle restarts.

The skinnier demon dashes toward me going straight for my neck with his claws. With a scream, both for the adrenaline and pain, I use Mira to slash the space in front of me in a straight line from top to bottom. The demon makes a quick turn to my right and I with all my strength, before Mira touches the ground, redirect the slash to the same direction. I feel like my arm is going to fly off. He doesn’t manage to evade this, I slash him with the tip of my blade.

When I notice that I connected, I turn my body and try to slash him with Yin and Yang on my left hand. He moves to my right, almost leaving my peripheral vision. Without missing a beat I use the momentum of my slash while using my right leg as a pivot to kick with my left leg. I clash with his hands, which are surprisingly hard.

After a moment I stomp my left leg on the ground while moving slightly forward and kicking with my right leg. The demon once again clashes with me, this time he punches my kick down. I heard a crack that didn’t come from me. This was further clarified when I could stand normally on my two feet moments later. The demon didn’t show a spec of pain in its face and was getting ready to attack again.

For what I think are a few seconds we trade blows. I manage to slash him a few times in his arms and legs while he manages to punch mine. I think these should be hurting more since the demon looks to be waiting for something to happen, maybe that I collapse due to the pain? Everything is hurting the same as before, I don’t think anything that doesn’t break my bones or deal fatal damage will do much to me right now.

As we begin to trade blows again, the bulkier demon is sent flying in our direction. I duck while the skinnier demon moves to the side. The bulkier one lands on his feet behind me and the crow dashes towards me.

I slash with mira while turning around and manage to catch the bulkier one. He blocks the slash with both of his hands. It doesn’t go very deep as he begins to use what I believe is mana to fortify himself somewhat. Also while turning around, I do a reverse kick with my left leg that manages to hit the crow who is sent in the direction of the skinnier demon who promptly punches him in the face and somehow makes him land on his feet behind me.

Now we are all in the same area. The bulkier demon pushes Mira up, freeing himself, and dashes forward. He tries to punch me with his right hand but I manage to dodge my crouching.

I slash his torso using Yin and Yang but I feel a punch on my back. Looks like the skinnier demon tried to punch the crow but he dodged leaving me to take the hit. The bulkier demon then hit him with the punch that was going for me.

I fully turn around as I begin to stand up. The crow is readying his hands to claw me down. Using Mira I try to do an upward slash to parry his claws but I hit the skinnier demon outside of my vision who was trying to punch the crow again. My slash doesn’t stop the momentum of the skinnier one and his punch hits the shoulder of the crown, making his hand change direction and hit the back of the bulkier one who in response kicks behind him, hitting my left shoulder. Then I felt it, I recovered a little bit of my mana.

Using this moment, as all three of them are in front of me, I pour as much mana as I can ,without losing all of it, on Mira and bring her down with all my strength. I somehow manage to cut the right arms of all of them.

The Crow is the only one to react, he gives a bird scream before I am pushed away by some invisible force. I am feeling something from the other two demons and it's not mana, now I am sure.

The bulkier demon kicks the crow to the side making him stop screaming and then all of them rushes toward me at once. The two demons hit me with a barrage of kicks and punches and the crow takes any chance to slash me with his claws. I only manage to block hits of otherwise lethal hits, receiving the rest. I can actually feel some of those hits. Strangely enough my clothes are not being destroyed but I am still taking damage, at least superficially, as if they were.

I kick or push them away for a moment but there is always at least one on me. The crow is also taking a few hits when I push the other two demons away but he seems to be ignoring those hits in favor of attacking me.

After what feels like an eternity later, all 4 of us are looking at each other exhausted. The two tiger demons did something to close their wounds that I didn’t notice and the crow actually had a few holes on him. I can see a rune in the middle of his chest.

“How… Are…You…Still…Alive…You..Fucking…Bitch!” The skinnier demon asks while panting.

Wish I could tell. I have no energy even to talk so I only give him a smile while I support myself on Mira.

“Fuck…This! Let’s Finish… This Fucking…Job and go… I don’t…Want to…See that…Woman…Again…” The bulkier one says with a little more energy.

“Hahaha, you weaklings are bound to your stamina, you will never kill me like that.” The crow says in the most irritating taunting tone a bird could have. He is obviously lying, he might not be showing exhaustion like we are but he can’t really do much more than us. His hits were the weakest between all three of them and he took the longest to actually do something. The two tigers were non-stop attacking me.

This is pissing me off. I am angry at a lot of things. First the fact that I somehow made myself believe a lot of lies in my old life. The second one is this entire situation. The last one is that I can’t fucking swear at these animals.

“Hey…” I try to form a sentence but nothing comes out. For a moment all of them look at me.

I can’t let them actually finish this and leave. They are strong. Like, really strong. If I don’t find a way to kill them now I will be fucked later.

Ideas begin to run in my mind. I could try to suck them off, but I don’t think I would be able to do that, both because we are all exhausted and they probably only see people like me as their enemies. I could try to throw Mira at them and hope they don’t have the strength to resist her weight but there is only one Mira I am 100% sure that I won’t be able to pick her up once she is fully on the ground. If there was fire around here I could try to convert it into mana.

The last idea made my brain work at full capacity. I could start a fire, and I have a clear path to actually start a forest fire in front of me.I put Mira on my shoulders again and begin to walk forward.

“Fuck…You…” The skinnier demon says to me as all three of them take a battle instance again.

Three steps, two steps, one step. Finally, I am where I want to be. There is a small trail of wood in between us that goes directly to the forest around us. Using the last of my mana I create a small spark on my feet that ignites the wood and in a matter of seconds starts to consume everything around us. I didn’t really have a clear image of what I wanted but this will do.

“You…Dumb…Bitch…We will…Not die…To this…Fire.” The bulkier demon says to me.

“Let her burn and suffocate.” The crow hatefully says to me.

Ignore them. They are not even moving. Feel the fire, gather it around yourself Lucia, everything has mana, you can control fire like no one and now there is a lake of fire for you to drink.

I begin to take deep breaths. Using the fire in contact with my feet I begin to move all the flames around us to where I am. As I move them here I begin to make them into my mana. As always the conversion hate is shit but with so much fire it's bound to give me enough mana for at least one move. For a few seconds I manage to do this uninterrupted but they soon feel that I am recovering.

They all rush towards me with animalistic force. They just crash into me making me lose contact with the fire but to my surprise the fire follows me and begins to gather around me even faster. They continue to hit me with what I think is the last of their energy through the fire. I endure the hits for a few seconds until I absorb all the fire. The mana is not much but it's enough for the one move I have that can kill all of them in one go for certain.

I begin to gather my mana on Mira as I jump back a few meters. They all look at me with the fear of death on their faces.

“FUCK!” The crow says as he exposes the rune in his chest.

“Do it!” The bulkier demon shouts at the skinnier one. They both seem to bite something and are now growing bigger.

As I finish gathering enough mana the Crow shoots a small laser at my direction and the two now 4 to 5 meters tall were-tigers in front of me are dashing toward me.

I don’t have much physical energy to talk so let’s hope they hear this. The last thing they will ever hear.

“EXCALIBURN!” I shout with all my energy while releasing a wave of fire that clashes and burns everything in front of me. For a moment I can see the clash between the wave, the laser and the two tiger demons before it consumes everything.

For a moment it is as if time froze. There was no sound, no movement, no heat or cold. I looked around looking for any enemies. My senses, at an all time high, couldn’t perceive anything besides the wind and the forest. And then I begin to laugh.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Like a mad woman I begin to laugh. I can’t stop it, it sounds like a forced laugh but it's completely natural. And then it hit me. Tears begin to pour from my eyes and little by little my laughs transform into cries.

I almost died for real this time, I almost lost everything I hold dear to me. My friends, my new family. I want to see them, I don’t want to die, I really don’t want to die. I want to see Sophia, I want to hug Alfina, I want to talk with Maxia and Zelfina, discuss things with Mess, and joke around with Monica. I have to help people in the city, I have to find out who is making those blimps, I want to, I have to have a happy life.

After every single one of those thoughts my emotions started to flow more and more. My heart began to hurt more and more every time I remembered something I hold dear that I could have lost. All I could do was cry more and more as I began to feel just how much I wanted to live. How much I don’t want to feel this pain again.