Shane was sweating bullets.

He was the one who’d brought that idiot into the town, and now he was going to be held accountable for all of… this. Both the man’s middle fingers hung in the air like a harbinger of Shane’s ensuing punishment. Not to mention what was going to happen to Brock. He’d be lucky if there was anything left afterwards.

Shane struggled to stay upright as the overwhelming presence of Jordan in the air threatened to bowl him off his knees and over with the sheer rage it contained. Somehow, by some godly miracle, the imbecile opposite his boss appeared to be entirely unaffected. That… what…?

Brock Carter, the brother of James, had been an enigmatic factor ever since his arrival, appearing out of nowhere when they’d first met and possessing a horrifying amount of Shards of Awakening. It was such a baffling quantity that it even put Jordan’s stores - and the quality of it - to shame.

Not to mention the strange ring that he’d seemed to have summoned them out of. If Jordan knew about it…

Well… he will soon enough. Shane clenched his jaw.

But the most mysterious part of his ‘legend’ was the strength he possessed. Shane could only sense the aura of someone around level ten from the man, he was certain his senses weren’t messing with him. Yet, the man ceaselessly emitted an undeniable danger, and even when they’d just been chatting amicably, Shane had felt like he’d been standing before a wild animal.

It was so imperceptible that he could have missed it, but it was there. But now…

Now it was like he was under the scrutiny of a savage beast and he was the prey.

The beast nonchalantly called out in their direction. His eyes didn’t leave Jordan and his bulging veins, “Hey, Harry? James? You guys might wanna run.”

If Shane was physically able under the immense oppression of Jordan’s aura, he would have groaned at the man’s arrogance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, and he soon found himself carried away by the young boy that had arrived with the man. Together, the three of them settled a fair distance away, spectating the fight intensely.

Shane managed to sigh in despair. When Brock was utterly trashed for his idiocy and arrogance, Jordan would come for him, blaming him for bringing the idiot here instead of thanking him for the haul he would be gaining through his exploits. Jordan was like that, a bit disillusioned and controlling, though he wasn’t exactly a bad leader.

He had gotten them along alright so far.

“Hey, James? You got any more maple syrup?”

The Aussie scavenger glanced at Harry, finding his accent soothing but his words concerning. No matter what came out of the boy’s mouth, it always seemed to be something that no one understood the reasoning behind, nor why it had even been said in the first place.

Shane chose to ignore him and bit his lip as Jordan pulled the hammer off his back. Its blunt end gleam dully in the sunlight. He hefted upon his shoulder and sneered at his nonchalant opponent.

“I gave you a chance, Brock. Don’t say I didn’t.” Jordan said, his frown etched deeply into his features.

The horrified Shane was forced to shield his eyes as the man exploded forward. Silently, he made to pat James on the arm to comfort him, the boy watching it all unfold in a state of abject shock. Though, when Jordan plunged his weapon downward and bathed the area in an upsurge of debris and dust, Shane joined him in the shock.

Even from where he was, a dozen or so meters away, he could feel the power within the hammer swing, and he could hear the air keen with fury. Jordan’s Strength was peaking at almost 150 points and it was more than enough for him to wield his heavy weapon like it was a mere plaything

But, despite all that, Brock’s aura remained steadfast. Unworried. Shane could sense it from within the dispersing dust.

The plume of obscuration rapidly cleared, and Jordan was revealed. His shirt had ripped from the flexing of his monstrous muscles and his Tutorial issued hammer had smashed a meter wide crater into a sanded asphalt.

Standing mere inches away from it, Brock was leisurely whistling a tune to himself. His arms had fallen from being crossed and were now tucked lazily into the pockets of his shorts. He seemed entirely unfazed.

Had… had Jordan really missed? Had Brock even seen the blow coming? Was that why he was so… calm?

“What the hell…” Shane muttered.

To his side, James just sucked in a breath, disbelieving.

Jordan looked to be wondering the very same things as Shane watched an expression of incomprehension flash across his face. Quickly though, it was replaced by one of pure rage. His aura flared further in intensity and roiled with renewed vigour.

He promptly yanked his hammer from the ground. Within the second, he was hauling it back and blurring it across sideways, aiming to fold Brock over his weapon and snap his spine.

His movements were almost faster than Shane thought was possible as he simply stepped back. Not Jordan, but Brock. The laid back Aussie was close to a blur as he easily retreated out of the range of his foe’s overwhelming swing. He stationed himself another few inches from the path of the hammer as he slowed.

To Shane’s side, Harry snorted, the sound bordering a laugh.

“At least Brock might get some exercise from this.”

James was still left stunned, but he managed to stutter out words, “He’s… he’s trying to piss him off…”

He sounded utterly baffled at the idiocy involved.

Shane was overcome with complex emotions just to admit it, but it truly appeared to be that way. The thought was so ridiculous that it was bordering the realm of hilariousness, yet the level 9 was toying with a man over level 30 without anything that so much as resembled effort. How… is that even possible?

Initially, he had thought that Brock must have had a Wisdom-focused Ascendancy to resist Jordan’s aura, but it seemed even that was wrong. The man actually appeared to lean heavily into Agility. Shane could say with certainty that he had never been more dumbstruck in his life than this moment right now.

Jordan himself was focused entirely upon Strength and Constitution, more so the former, and it didn’t take a genius to know this was a bad match up. There was no point in having the most powerful swings in a fight if you couldn’t land even one of them. Either way, the battle should have ended with the first blow, the sheer power behind Jordan’s attack unavoidable.

Idly, Shane’s eyes wandered to the skies. There was a reason these executions were meant to be quick. A sound reached his ears, and his attention rapidly returned to the fight.

In the midst of the melee, Shane heard the supposedly weaker warrior chuckle as he flawlessly slipped past each and every one of Jordan’s frantic swings. Alice Springs’ leader growled in frustration, “STOP! FUCKING!! MOVING!!!”

“Oop. You were a bee’s dick away that time.” He watched on as Brock taunted the man, much to the laughter of Harry to his side.

The hammer wielder gritted his teeth loud enough that even Shane could hear them grinding together, and he began to swing wider arcs with his weapon, his rage taking over him and aiding his furious assault. It was clear to anyone watching that his anger was making him clumsy.

Capitalizing on the gaping opening left by Jordan’s latest attack, Brock snorted. The next second, his fist snapped through the air and delivered a sharp punch to the man’s nose. A sickening crack rang out in the street, and Jordan stumbled back, almost losing his grip on his weapon as he moved his other hand to clutch the wound. A nasally groan of pain escaped him.

By now, people had long heard the commotion of their fight and gathered upon the sidelines, though they maintained caution. They were curious as to who their leader was fighting, but were ready to flee at the first sign of an enraged beast. Hell, even the majority of Jordan’s private crew of guards had wandered over.

Onlookers were clumped in the streets, and collectively, they gasped as they watched Jordan’s nose crunch into his face.

Shane held his breath in horror, resisting the urge to join them in gasping. Silently, his eyes flickered to Brock. The man was wincing in pain as he shook a spurt of dripping orange blood from his knuckles, “Sorry champ. Should I have pulled my punch a little bit for you?”

Despite being far enough away that they were unaffected by his powerful aura, the crowd could readily feel the seething fury roiling within. Slowly, they retreated a little, relieving themselves from the overbearing sensation of rage. Shane followed their lead and moved back as well.

A deafening silence reigned over the area as Jordan lifted his hand from his wound, his palm soaked with his own blood. James, Shane, and just about everyone present looked on with a mix halfway between abject terror and just plain despair at the newfound fallibility of their leader.

Many were able to sense the low level of his opponent. Suddenly, the aegis they relied on to guide them through the apocalypse wasn’t as reliable as they had believed.

Unable to empathize with the emotions of the many, Harry cheered Brock onward, “BEAT HIS ASSSSSSS!!!”

Jordan’s face contracted into an expression of rage, and he held an arm aloft. His hand reach out and pointed itself toward Harry, fingers splayed outwards. The aura populating the air receded in size marginally. Shane swallowed as dark smoke began to gather within his outstretched palm, twisting into something akin to a spike.

The limb it was created upon became increasingly transparent as more and more smoke flowed out from his pores and joined the projectile.

Shane blinked. The air hissed. A spray of sunset gore coloured the asphalt.

Slowly, his eyes wandered back up from the splatter of blood and to Jordan, who in turn, looked just as confused. His smoky projectile dispersed as his focus waned, and he glanced down, his gaze falling upon what appeared to be a knife attached to an ethereal violet chain. The blade had been pierced directly into the muscles of his shoulder.

“I’m over here, mate.”

Shane recoiled as Brock appeared before the baffled Jordan and yanked on the chain. With a jolt, the top half of the leader of Alice Springs was pulled downwards, his face promptly meeting a rising knee. Blood fell and coloured the ground.

“Gagh!”

His face slammed into Brock’s kneecap, and his head bounced backwards. With an impressive haste, the knife warrior wrapped the chain around the man’s neck, grabbed it with his other hand and pulled him back down. This time, it was to meet his other knee. More blood splattered across the asphalt.

As Jordan finally saw a pattern forming, he yanked the blade free and swiped at Brock, attempting to catch him in his sizeable arms. But the man was too quick and slipped away effortlessly. Jordan tried to glance up and give chase, unwilling to give up the close range advantage his grappling would have.

Unfortunately, a fist slammed into his face from the side and ended his advance prematurely. He choked on his next breath and fell sideways, his balance already disturbed. He hit the earth with a resounding thump and his hammer cluttered onto the ground, cracking the asphalt.

Shane had never seen him be so thoroughly thrashed in his entire time of knowing the man, even by the scarily powerful beasts in the hordes. After some thought, Shane supposed this time was no different.

It wasn’t a fight between two men. It was one of man vs beast.

**

Brock looked on with grim satisfaction as his childhood bully reeled from the punch and sprawled onto the ground. Blood dribbled from his ruined nose and broken skin. Instinctively, Jordan reached out for his hammer. Unfortunately for him, the fall had seen it land out of his reach. Not that it would have made much of a difference anyway at this point.

For good measure, he placed his foot atop his hand and twisted. Jordan hissed.

Serves you right, asshole. Brock snorted as he nursed his aching fist. He didn’t know if it was because of Jordan’s evidently high Constitution or because he couldn’t remember ever punching someone in his life, but it really fucking hurt. I wonder if I should give you a little ‘flushie’ now. For old times sake…

If not for the fact it would waste this town’s precious remaining water, he would have loved to.

Initially, while the office worker had been enjoying running circles around the gigantic dickhead, his efforts to piss Jordan off had fallen short the moment the man had tried to target Harry on the sidelines. The boy wasn’t even eighteen yet, nor was he involved in their fight either. So the asshole sprawled across the ground deserved what had come to him.

Still, Brock gritted his teeth. It'd be dangerous to leave someone like this alive... but...

Regardless, the state he’d left the man in satisfied him immensely. Despite his attempt at attacking Harry, he didn’t intend to take it any further, intent on just roughing him up a bit. He… didn’t want to kill him. He didn’t want to go down that path just yet. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to walk back from it once he started.

He'd just walked free from that jungle and his mentality was still sharp like the edge of his knife. Brock feared that if he made the decision to kill the man, it wouldn't be Brock Carter talking, but the him that had desperately reached for survival. Killing him... wasn't necessary. Not like it had been with Ur'Kahn.

Brock knew that a lot of problems could be solved with a death or two, or at least he knew that people could convince themselves of that. That applied especially so in the tumultuous times they were in now, and… he didn’t want to fall down that hole of taking the easy route here. Another person’s life wasn’t worth that. He glanced at James. But...

Huffing out a breath, he shook his head. I'll deal with things when they come my way.

That aside, Brock had thought he would have needed to try harder during the fight, but the buffoon was all stats and no technique. Hell, the idiot was so confident in his power that he didn’t use his Techniques until the end, and even then, Brock wasn’t even the target.

Sure, his swings were undeniably powerful, but they were far too slow and unintuitive to even pose so much as a mild threat to the knife warrior. That wasn’t to say that his high Constitution hadn’t helped him later on though when the beating started. Brock was sure he’d be even worse off without it.

Despite himself, Brock chuckled. He found it oddly fitting that years later he was his bully’s natural counter. Fate was a funny bitch.

Letting the humour of the situation embrace him, Brock looked down to the pitiful man who thought his hand was covertly inching closer to his weapon. The grouping of onlookers and his brother gazed on with an eerie silence, left stunned by the complete and utter beatdown their unshakable leader had taken.

“You right now, mate? You wanna stop being a bitc-?” The words caught in Brock’s throat.

Cold sweat dripped down his forehead as an overwhelmingly powerful aura washed over the town of Alice Springs. A mere touch of it against Jordan’s own was all it needed to force his back inside his Inner Self. Brock recalled the familiarity of it from the one he’d felt at the house where they’d found Shane. Ohhhh fuck.

Both his and Jordan’s eyes began to widen in realization.

Quickly, Jordan managed to drag himself off the asphalt and to his feet - albeit shakily - and he shed all pretences of combat, taking charge of the harried populace like the leader he was, “GET… TO COVER! THE FUCKING BIRD’S COMING!”

The scream was marred by a nasally delivery, but it got the point across perfectly.

Those gathered were a bit slow to react, but the truth of the matter swiftly dawned on them. Screaming and frantic, they scrambled away in just about every direction, neglecting a return to their own houses and instead heading to any place closest.

A few had tried to gun for Brock’s childhood house, but all he’d needed was a single ‘no you fucking don’t’ before they changed trajectory. He was not letting some random people inside his house, ‘Sky Bandit’ or not.

Luckily for literally everyone, the aura was a safe enough distance away that people could still move around somewhat unhindered. Despite that, Brock could detect it rapidly approaching from the west. He’d give it less than a minute before it was right above them.

Eying Jordan as he snatched his hammer from the road followed suit of the population, Brock beckoned for Harry, James and Shane to enter their house. Mere seconds had passed, and that street was left utterly deserted, as though it hadn’t seen the touch of humanity in decades. As he crested the doorway and shut the door, he caught sight of people peeking past their curtains and scanning the skies.

They seem… kinda used to this… He guessed that attacks from the Sky Bandit must have been pretty routine occurrences for everyone’s efforts at hiding to be so efficient.

The aura became more and more oppressive as its owner closed in, and Brock joined the others in huddling under the kitchen table. James made a concerted effort to shut the opened curtains the best he could before he scrambled to join them.

No one dared to speak, and the house was bathed in a dull quiet as both James and Shane were slowly forced to lie on the ground by the increasing pressure upon them.

From Brock’s limited understanding so far, a function of Wisdom was to help lessen the effects of another’s aura on you, but levels still seemed to be the biggest factor in empowered resistance. The higher your level, the more aura you possessed and therefore the more you had to shield yourself with. At least, that was what Harry had relayed to him from the words of his Tutorial overseers.

So far, he had either been coasting through the negative effects of aura suppression with his high Wisdom, or his Titles also had a hand in nullifying an aura’s effects somehow.

Soon though, even Brock wasn’t given the liberty to think, as he heard the pounding beats of the Sky Bandit’s wings and its aura attacked him directly. Through his muddled senses, he could tell that it had landed down where the fight between him and Jordan had occurred moments prior and he resisted the urge to swear. So he did it in his mind. Fuuuuuuck…

The beast had probably felt the aura emissions from their fight. Monsters couldn’t sense someone’s aura signature, but once the aura had been spent and the trace was left behind, he assumed it was free reign for them to find it.

Luckily, after a series of several tense seconds where no one so much as breathed lest it heard them, the monster once more took to the air and disappeared into the sky, easing the ethereal weight upon them as its body receded into the distance.

It took several minutes before everyone felt comfortable enough to speak again, and James smiled wryly.

“So… uhh… that was the Sky Bandit,” he gestured to the vague direction it had left to, “the thing’s been terrorizing us since the day we were teleported here.”

Shane nodded solemnly in agreement, though his eyes never left Brock, the two bulbs of brown tremoring with something sitting between primordial fear and utter incomprehension. James exhaled slowly, and he met Brock’s eyes. He was wearing a deadly serious expression and Brock swallowed involuntarily.

“You beat Jordan, Brock. At level nine.” He looked to Harry with obvious suspicion, somewhat convinced that the boy had known of his brother’s hidden power all along, “Do you want to explain to me how the hell that’s even possible?!”

Brock chuckled nervously and a hand was running through his matted hair before he even realized it. Staring back into the eyes of his brother, he saw firm conviction within. He snuck a covert glance at Harry too but immediately decided that he trusted the boy. There wasn’t really much he could do with the information anyway.

Regardless, he wasn’t going to lie to his brother. James knew him too well and would see through his lies in an instant.

As for Shane… well… quite frankly, the man looked at him like he was the fucking devil on Earth. So Brock doubted he’d go out of his way to reveal anything. And even if he did, again, the information was pretty useless. Unless maybe someone sought out the Source there, but he’d already killed all the Alphas.

Taking a deep breath in, Brock regarded the group with an easy - albeit forced – smile. Memories rose to the forefront of his mind, and a familiar sense of loneliness settled over him, “You see, it all begins on your average Monday night…”

Then, he proceeded to tell them all about the month he had spent alone in hell.