West blurred forward, appearing before Brock in a matter of seconds, his gigantic weapon tearing through the air with an unmatched fury, its edge tinged by a rustic red glow. But, with the doubling of his combat strength, Brock wasn’t at all caught unaware, swiftly diving out the way as it obliterated the road behind him.

Without missing a beat, Brock’s arm flashed out at unprecedented speeds, sending his signature weapon hissing through the space between them. In a spray of gore, it carved through his flesh and lodged itself within his chest.

I… I can do this…

Grasping the chain with both hands, the human pulled on it with all his might, his temporarily enhanced Strength barely enough to tug the werewolf off-balance, cancelling the preparation of his follow up attack.

Revealing his fangs in a grin, West promptly tore the blade from his chest and threw it aside, shifting his stance and rapidly bringing his sword across in a horizontal sweep, the sheer power behind the attack sending a tidal wave of dirt and debris washing in Brock’s direction.

“Oh shit.”

The man managed to scurry out the way, albeit barely, and he wasn’t given even a second to regain his bearings as a foot slammed into his stomach. Brock spat out blood as he exploded backwards, his limp body crashing through building after building until his momentum was spent and he finally found himself 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 the attack. His body was sore all over, and he was once again littered with bruises and scratches, aside from those that hadn’t fully healed yet, but Brock was alive, and he was still in the fight.

He was brought from his thoughts as the air began to hiss from the descent of West’s weapon, and he quickly dashed out the remains of the building, watching as his opponent and his blade crashed into the earth and razed the surroundings to the ground. A shockwave slapped Brock weightily and he stumbled.

“You have a warrior’s spirit, human.” West laughed joyously as he readied his sword once more and attacked.

Brock jumped out the way of his foe’s powerful thrust and sliced a shallow gash across the bipedal wolf’s arm as his blade was recalled and caught the monster on the way back, “Thanks, mate. I guess?”

He wasn’t sure how to respond, yet Brock found the need to match the courtesy of his opponent and reply, even if it wasn’t any good. West didn’t seem to mind, merely stepping forward and swiftly converting his thrust into a sweeping whirlwind as he spun around, his reddened edge forming a hurricane of brutal force as it crept ever closer to Brock.

Not daring to approach while he was attacking so overpoweringly, Brock retreated and waited for the beast to tire himself out. It took a few moments, but the whirlwind finally halted, but not in the way Brock was expecting. Cursing, he braced the flat of his extended blade with his hands and shot backward as the greatsword sliced through the whirlwind and flew toward him, before crashing into his blade.

He managed to fully stall the force dormant from the throw, but he collided through the bottom of a building behind him, once again exiting out into another street. He rolled along the asphalt for a few meters, before finally catching himself and getting to his feet in preparation for the next attack.

I think… were evenly matched?

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, though the werewolf’s combat skill far outmatched his own. The only solace he found was in the fact his weapon allowed him to neglect to meet the beast head-on.

The opponent in question charged through the building in a shower of rubble a second later and Brock was surprised to see an outstretched hand aiming in his direction. He felt a pulse of energy in the air, one reminiscent of the one belonging to his Augment, and he was forced to frantically dodge to the side as a storm of microscopic slashes ravaged the area where he had once been standing.

It was more a feeling than any visual confirmation, and Brock was happy with that. He had no intent to test the true nature of the strange ability. I’m fucked if that hits me.

‘Tsking’ as his attack missed its elusive target, West gripped his sword once more and hurriedly deflected the chain-knife shooting for his head. It cut a small gouge in the old lengths of the blade but otherwise left it untouched.

‘Tsking’ right back as his attack was so effortlessly discarded, Brock reassumed his grasp on his weapon and flashed forward to meet his opponent. West chuckled with glee, and met his oncoming enemy with an overhead swing, intent on ending the fight prematurely. Brock surprised him, however, when his chain knife shot out not at the werewolf, but at a root covered streetlamp several meters away.

Rapidly, Brock recalled his blade and shifted direction, avoiding the brutal attack from his opponent and causing the beast to snarl with barely restrained excitement, “This is certainly a fight I’ll remember, human. Rejoice.”

“Great. I’m… rejoicing.” He responded, the tinge of sarcasm hidden by his rugged pants.

Feeling the sheen of sweat on his forehead, Brock yanked his blade from both root and metal alike and prepared himself, an opening slowly revealing itself to him as West overextended his body during his follow-up swing. Brock swiftly ducked under the blade as it passed him by and countered with an attack of his own, his Augment infused chain-knife meeting flesh a short while later.

Brock gritted his teeth and whipped his chain, smiling with satisfaction as his embedded weapon shook and further gored the wound it had already created. West winced and actually jumped back, letting the knife reach its maximum range and fall out, snaking back into Brock’s hand a short while later.

West hefted his weapon onto his shoulders once again, “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, but he soon settled and seemed oddly joyful as he spoke, “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, and then 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.

More accurately, his opponent had.

Brock sidestepped a thrust from Ur’Khan, feeling the air pressure slap his face as he moved into his opponent’s guard and tore a bloody gash up the werewolf’s forearm. Ur’Khan responded to the attack in kind, batting Brock into a preestablished pile of rubble with his wounded arm and chasing him immediately with one of his brutal overhead swings.

Brock frantically rolled out the way, suffering an explosion of stone and dust as it smacked across his body, and he took the limited cover they provided to throw out and embed his blade into the thigh of his foe, whipping the chain like he had all the others and worsening the seared but strangely un-cauterised wound.

Growling, Ur’Khan didn’t even bother to remove the smaller blade, instead focusing on his own weapon residing in a small crater. He grunted in exertion as he forced it to the side and battered Brock away with both the flat of his blade and an explosion of earth.

Contrary to what he expected, however, the dagger didn’t return to Brock, but the other way around. Surprised, the monster didn’t react fast enough as his opposing combatant arrived and tore the blade from the entry site, weaving around a haphazard clawed slash, the very air finding itself torn to molecular shreds at its mere passage.

Brock responded with a powerful attack of his own, and a burst of superheated energies exploded from his outstretched hand as it aimed toward the side of the beast’s knee. His blazing Augment tore into the flesh and the bone beneath, ravaging the monster’s joint and forcing him to snarl in agony.

Gazing at 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-

The next second, Brock felt his body fold over the blunt edge of Ur’Khan’s greatsword, and he vomited out an upsurge of blood, his insides becoming utterly pulverised by the raw power behind the swing. He shot through the air, spiralling a dozen times a second as he soared before he finally slammed into the earth hundreds of meters from his opponent.

Oh… fuck…

His entire body was consumed by anguish as Brock felt the literal soup of his organs forcefully spill out his mouth. His arm was brutally 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 distance, but Ur’Khan seemed to be forced to limp the gap between them, his knee a molten mess of charred bones 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, showing Brock that the timer on his life had already been set and was 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, vomiting out stream after stream of his pulverized innards as he met Ur’Khan’s eyes defiantly, noting the unadulterated respect held within. Brock kept himself steady with deep breaths as his opponent finally hobbled to a halt, only ten meters from him.

“You… are a true warrior… Brock Carter…” Ur’Khan coughed up blood as he spoke, barely resisting the urge to fall to his knees under the strain of holding his blood deprived body up, “You have earned… my respect. And humanity… is lucky to have a fighter… such as yourself…”

Without saying much more, the werewolf fell to the ground, breathing weakly as his life slowly seeped away from him, “…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, the being who had given him a fight that he certainly could say he truly enjoyed, despite the danger and pain rife throughout. By now, most pains had become a dull sensation in Brock’s body from overexposure, allowing him to focus better during combat.

It was a fight where he neither overpowered the enemy nor was outright defeated. It was a match between equals, even if one of them were only temporarily at the other’s level of power. 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.

“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 sighed and his infused blade swung down, entering the temple of his opponent and killing him instantly. With an overwhelming sense of loss, Brock watched as the body of Ur’Khan, Son of the Sword went limp, leaving him once more alone in the urban jungle. A silence fell over the area.

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