Things happened quickly. As the shadows of the four fighters cast monsters across the walls they fought. Chain against knife. Poker against club. Joe barely felt the warm lifeblood splash against his face as the stocky woman toppled, knife through her neck. He deflected another blow from the poker bearing man and he searched for the enigma. He found it, by taking a dagger through his calf. He collapsed to the floor luckily dodging a wild swing from the poker man. Then the two were but whispers of light as they fought their way across the sand, the sounds of their battle echoing off the walls. Joe dragged himself away clutching his bleeding limb. Ripping a section from his shirt, he wrapped it just below the knee to stem the bleeding slightly. He would need to be ready soon.

The bald man was faring badly, his blind side was peppered with slight wounds but they were bleeding profusely. His long range just barely managed to keep the enigma at bay, each swing of his passing preposterously close to braining it. The enigma danced round an errant swing landing a deep blow to the man’s side. The man however, experienced as he was, retaliated when it was close to land a glancing blow on its head sending it flying. The man winced as he grasped at his side and then eyed Joe who was lying on the floor. Before he could move, the enigma moved and from within the crumpled remains of its hood a dizzyingly stock of blond hair emerged. Both Joe and the bald man were shocked, for beneath the beautiful blond locks lay an even more beautiful female visage. Eyes that shone a sky sea blue even in the dimly lit arena, lips bountiful promising exotic secrets and a dainty nose that would not be seen amiss on the fairest of runway beauties. The woman rubbed at the spot where she had been thumped by the poker and then turned to look at the bald man who was still stupefied. That was his last fatal mistake. The next moment he was grasping at the dagger that protruded from his good eye as he fell to the ground.

Joe turned from the now still form of the bald man to the blond representation of walking death. She was too quick, too deadly, too bloody beautiful. Still, he would not die on his arse like some pathetic worm, so he took to his feet, slowly and painfully. Holding his club in front of him he glared at the woman who stood looking at him quizzically. “See you later” she said, her voice echoing prettily like tinkling bells. And just as casually she withdrew the knife from the bald man’s eye, wiped the gore on his clothing and then exited through the now open door. Joe stood there for a good minute, stunned stupid. He hadn’t noticed the door’s opening and he had survived by pure luck once again. He shivered as he limped towards his own open door, looking back over his shoulder at the now closed wall where death incarnate had gone ‘Who was she’?

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—

Mary breathed a sigh of relief as she laid back into her chair, closing the Onion stream in front of her. She felt frustration at how men, inexperienced men, could be so easily distracted by beauty. This had been Joe’s biggest test yet and he had just scraped by. She walked to the window, drawing the inner pane open and sparked a cigarette. She dragged the poisonous plume down into her lungs and held it, expelling it only when she felt the nicotine rush. “You’re more important than you know Joe, you must survive!” she said to the wind. Down below in the street, another man had taken up residence in the doorway and was currently urinating directly on the adjacent overflowing bins. Turning away, Mary threw her cigarette disgusted and straightened her dress. She hated herself for sending him down this path. She felt a subtle anguish clutch at her heart. Firming her resolve she shut the window behind her. He would make it out, and she would be ready for him.

—-

In a lab deep within the Tyzer complex Julia stood peering into an electron microscope. By the side she wrote chemical formula onto a notebook nodding as she did so. Behind her, behind a two way mirror, a trio of well dressed individuals watched on, speaking to each other occasionally in measured tones. On the table before them, a lab coated man painstakingly copied out the formula Julia wrote.