The soldier could smell smoke.

It was a very specific type of smoke. It wasn't the scent of a campfire, which usually had some kind of spiced meat drifting along with the breeze. It wasn't the scent of burning corpses, another smell he was quite familiar with.

No, this was the smell of a farmhouse that had been very deliberately doused in some kind of inflammant and then torched.

Daisy's nose twitched. "What is that?"

Tagral took a deep breath. "Wheat, I'd say. Maybe a few cows?" He turned to the soldier. "D'you think it's who we're lookin' for?"

The soldier summoned his beloved shotgun, and Tagral nodded understandingly. "To summarize, you want me and Daisy to stay back here with Isabeld and let you relax a bit by taking on whoever did this on your own?"

Looking up, he discovered both Daisy and the soldier staring at him, and put his hands up defensively. "Hey, when your life depends on reading moods, you get good at it."

The soldier shook his head and started heading out. As irritating as it was to admit it, Tagral was indeed correct. The incident with Sloth had left him feeling angry at himself and something else needed to pay for it. Slinging her gun over her shoulder, Daisy hopped on Isabeld's back and crossed her legs, reaching for an apple. "Okay, you do you. We'll be here when you're done."

A few minutes later, the soldier was trekking through fields of tall corn, weapon at the ready. He heard something and felt it through the ground a moment later, the rumble of a gun. Not one of the soldier's guns, no - this one was different.

He broke into a run and burst out onto a strange, albeit oddly familiar, scene. A massive man decked in yellow and red armor was blasting his weapon at a remarkably agile man dressed like a farmer. The farmer was darting across the ground, summoning demons who appeared and died as quickly as he could bring them up. He was shouting. "-retirement! The Empire won't take me alive!"

The soldier was unsure who had attacked who first. It didn't matter. The farmer was summoning demons, and the soldier was on a mission to end them. Swapping his shotgun for a rocket launcher, he sent a missle careening in the farmer's direction, and the landscape was reduced to a charred crater a second later.

Turning to face him, the armored man roared, "WHAT KIND OF HEAVY WEAPON IS THAT? GIVE IT TO ME!"

He paced towards the soldier, one hand outstretched. The soldier realized that the armored man wanted his weapon, which ranked high on his list of annoyances, and sprinted forward. He couldn't see past the strange helmet the man had on, but he didn't need to see the man's face to tell he was ready to fight.

Raising his gun, the man fired, and a bolt of lead slammed into the soldier's gut. absorbed the entire hit, not counting the shockwave produced by the impact, and the soldier straight-kicked the man in the chest.

The ground cracked as the man bent his knees, sliding backward as his boots dug twin trenches in the dirt. "HERETIC!" He lifted his gun again and kept firing. The soldier ignored the hits, pulling his shotgun out and aiming for the man's head.

The blast that erupted from the shotgun's end was big enough to scorch the corn around them in a massive radius, and the flaming farmhouse collapsed. The man somehow took the hit on his shoulder and stomped forward, pulling some kind of chainsaw/sword combination out of nowhere. The soldier immediately wanted one.

For now, he had his own chainsaw, and he pulled it out with a manic grin. Chainsword met chainsaw with a grinding screech of metal, and they struggled for a moment. The soldier was surprised to find that he was struggling - whatever this man was, he was strong!

Forcing both weapons to the side, the soldier stomped forward and headbutted the man, three rapid hits so fast it was impossible to tell the sounds apart. The man shook the impact off and smashed his own helmet into the soldier's.

With a motion fueled by brute force, the soldier yanked his chainsaw back, and the chain snapped. He stared in shock at the suddenly useless weapon as the man danced backward, his chainsaw raised.

Nope, the soldier wasn't doing that anymore. He yanked out the Super Shotgun and fired.

The ground jumped and the ruined farmhouse was blown away by the blast, but the man somehow dodged, diving forward and coming up in a roll. Stepping sideways, he snapped an armored hand out and seized the Super Shotgun. "GIVE ME YOUR GUN!"

The soldier's eyes narrowed behind his helmet.

He was having fun.

He let go of the Super Shotgun and summoned another one. The man contrived to look confused, even though his face was obscured. It didn't seem to be enough confusion to stop him from shooting the soldier in the chest.

The soldier was knocked head over heels and felt a rib crack. He rejoiced in the pain, even though his vision was already clouding in red as long-suppressed fury was unleashed from deep within him. A hand slammed into the ground and he swung himself downward, boots crashing into the ground with enough force to sent chunks of rock flying into the air.

Raising his hands, he showed the man the chain gun he was holding, spinning the barrels up. The man raised his newly obtained Super Shotgun again, preparing to fire.

The soldier never gave him the chance, unloading several hundred pounds of lead a second into the man's armor as he walked forward, laughing like a madman.

Would he finally get to fight someone on even ground?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Daisy rubbed the apple on her pant leg, examined it, and took a bite. Glancing over at Tagral, she said thoughtfully, "Do you think we should help?"

Tagral shrugged. "It's Doom. He can handle it."

The trees bent backward under a sudden blast of air, the immediately recognizable sound of Doom's fight-ending weapon pushing the gale onward. Tagral pointed in the direction it'd come from. "See? He's fine."

The blast came again a moment later, and then again. A bone-rattling thud emanated from the horizon as something caused a minor earthquake. Daisy frowned. "Has he ever used it that many times?"

Tagral squinted in the direction Doom had gone in, noting the thick plume of black smoke. "No, I don't think so. Maybe you're right. I'll go-"

The sky lit up green as Doom's trump card was fired, and the clouds were blown out of the sky. Isabeld hunched, making sure Daisy was guarded from the resulting shockwave that leveled trees and pulverized rocks. Even Tagral had to lean forward, gritting his teeth and putting a hand in front of him.

As the minutes passed and no sound came from the battle, Tagral turned to Daisy. "Yeah, it's dead now, whatever it is."

Daisy wasn't looking at him. She was pointing over his shoulder. "Look."

He turned around. Doom was approaching them, several already mending dents in his armor visible even from this distance. Another man, one even taller than Doom, accompanied him. He was dressed in yellow and red armor, and a good portion of his helmet was missing. It looked as though his left arm had been blown off and then regrown, based on the lack of armor or clothing on it.

He shouted, and from a thousand feet away, was still loud enough that Daisy had to cover her ears. "I HAVE BATTLED YOUR CHAMPION AND FOUND THE COMBAT INVIGORATING! I SHALL COME WITH YOU, SO LONG AS WE SHALL SLAY HERETICS!"

Tagral put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "Oh, great. They're multiplying."