The door flew open and Lance took a step out. He was not expecting the scene displayed in front of him, which gave him pause, and Loren smacked into Lance’s back, and then Mick crashed into Loren. They jammed at the door and stumbled over, falling prone before the groups before them.

Standing at the top of the stairs that reached this floor were three people.

The one in the lead was a dark skinned man, wearing a black tuxedo, with scars across his mouth that looked like stitches, or like fangs. He had long dreadlocks, and interwoven into them were golden chords and accessories. He had three sheathes at his side, but only one currently held a blade. The other two were in his hands.

Behind him was an asian woman in a similar tuxedo, though one obviously made for women. She was only carrying a suitcase.

Then even further back, still standing on the stairs, was the largest of all three, a bulking black man in a similar getup. His face was almost identical to the first africalos, save this man’s scar was a square that framed his face, and the weapon he had hefted over his shoulder was a massive two meter long axe.

Those three were certainly strange.

But what made Lance stumble was not just those in black.

Standing in between them was a single man. He was absolutely massive. Larger than anyone Lance had ever seen in his life, this person was a bulging goliath of fat and muscle that had more in common with a brick wall than a human being. This person had the face of a delinquent drunkard: a dirty unwashed pair of mutton chops that connected to a lengthy mustache and a gleaming bald spot with whatever hair the man had left crowning around almost like the back half of a medieval monk’s haircut.

This human goliath was holding in his hands two truck tires, each at least a meter long and probably weighing over 50 kilos.

Some kind of animosity had sparked between these two groups, Lance could tell, and his group’s intervention might have been the spark that set off the fuse. Things were about to explode, and all he could do was hold still.

“Huh,” the giant spoke. He had a very thick russian accent and spat with every loud word. “So. Who the fuck are you!?” He asked, pointing at the three in black. Then, he turned and pointed at Lance. “Second question. Who the fuck are you!? Too!?”

Without answering the question, the black man with katanas dashed forward, slashing an x at the giant.

But only sparks appeared, as the giant lifted his tire at the last second, using the metal rim inside to deflect the blades. Again, the man with blades tried to slash, but again he was deflected.

“I’m askin’ ya’ a question!!”

The giant swung his tire around in an arc that pulled air along with it, barely missing the swordsman. Though that had more to do with the swordsman’s dodge than the giant’s attack.

The tire swung only inches over the man’s head, and he dropped to the floor and spun, kicking hard into the large man’s leg.

It did nothing, and the huge man didn’t even flinch.

Frozen there, on the ground, the black man smiled.

“You can call me Shadow Komodo,” he said. “If that answers your question. Now that I’ve done that, you can tell me who you are, huh!”

Just as Shadow Komodo finished, a tire slammed down at where he just was.

The assassin had disengaged. Had he been any slower, his body would have been smashed flat by the tire.

“You don’t know me!?” As he asked, the red giant lifted his two tires up, horizontal to his body. With his already long arms, this made his wingspan truly massive. His eyes were open as wide as they possibly could be and his smile showed upper and lower gums. “Then I’ll, with respect, tell ya’! Bear! God! Bear! God!”

As Bear God began chanting his name, he started clapping the tires together, the rubber making a dull bonging sound and the metal clanging a second later. It was in poor time with his continuous chanting, and it sounded like some kind of hellish chorus at a sports event.

“Bear!” Bong. Clank. “God!” Bong. Clank. “Bear!” Bong. Clank. “God!” Bong. Clank.

This couldn’t be anything but bizarre to onlookers.

And everyone except for Shadow Komodo was stupefied at this man’s actions.

“Haha! You’re a wild one, aren’t ya’?”

“Bow before me!!”

As the two men were tensed up to battle, Lance’s mind finally snapped back as he felt a finger tap his shoulder. It was Honey with a smirk on her face. She seemed to be enjoying the show, unlike everyone else, but understood one very important thing.

If those two were both assassins, they were obviously not friends.

Battling against each other was a distraction Lance’s group could abuse. He looked back at Loren and nodded.

“Let’s go,” he whispered. “Before they notice us.”

But that wasn’t going to happen so easily. As soon as Lance started moving, he jerked his head back and froze. It was because he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye.

What had happened was a spear with a trident end, only a meter long, had impaled itself into the wall right in front of Lance’s face. Barely a centimeter or two from his face. Whoever threw it had accounted for his dodge, and if he had been any less cautious, would have had his head destroyed.

He turned.

The asian woman had dropped the suitcase. In its place were now a few tools, two of them being tridents with spiky heads much like the javelin that had been thrown. In her other hand was a long mancatcher, with a scythe head sticking out from next to the capture spikes. She flicked one of the javelins in the air, and pulled her arm back to heft another javelin.

Lance dove forward and open fired.

This caused her to pause, shifting slightly while the man in the very back with the axe stood in front of her and blocked the bullets with the side of his axe. Sparks flew and the sound of blades clashing on tire rim sounded simultaneously.

“Don’t move,” the asian woman said, then fired a trident from behind her companion.

It was smashed out of the air by Bear God, who smashed Shadow Komodo to the side with a tire. The africalos assassin’s arm hung limply by his side, and the shattered katana fell to the floor. He was sweating heavily, even though their exchange hadn’t been more than a few seconds, but Bear God seemed to be in perfect health.

“Look, lady,” Bear God said, taking a step in between her and the retreating group. “I don’t know, and don’t care, who-”

She didn’t even pay attention to him.

“Springboard,” she said to the axe wilder. “Now.”

The man nodded, and lowered his axe, turning it sideways. She stepped onto it, crouching low, and ducked her head. Then, without even waiting to see it she was ready, the man began to spin. As he did, he pulled the axe along, turning it so that it looked like a paddle with the asian assassin crouched on it. After two full rotations, he was leaning back and letting momentum carry his speed, and she released.

It was like a baseball player striking a home run, and from the makeshift springboard, the assassin flew through the sky. She twisted around in the air as she approached the lifted ceiling, and her feet connected with it in a sprint as she began running while upside down. It was more than enough propulsion to keep her feet on the ceiling for a few seconds before she started falling, and she kicked off and twisted to land with a slide in front of Lance and his group, with the door only a few meters away at her back. She held the mancatcher forward.

“You’re all going to die,” she said. “If you want it to be quick and painless, send Loren Dames forward.”

“Alright, sorry, sorry.”

Everyone turned to see Honey, standing with her hands up and an apologetic smile on her face. She took a slow step forward and dropped her pistol.

“Sorry for trying to protect his life,” Honey continued. “But if we hand him over, can you just pretty please let us live? I mean, I’d rather not die, whether it be quick and painless or not.”

The mysterious woman didn’t answer.

“Well, I mean, I figured I could try and ask at the very least. Here, you can take him,” Honey said, putting her hands on the shoulders of one of the people in complete black suits. Her doing so gave everyone pause. “Oh, and if you’re gonna be killing people, could you do me last?”

Honey pushed forward a person whose face was covered, but it wasn’t Loren Dames.

It was Ms. Lenz, who stumbled forward from the push and fell onto the ground. While it was pretty obvious this person had a slim figure, it was fortunate that Ms. Lenz had a boyish body. The assassin held her mancatcher up to Ms. Lenz’s covered face.

“Take off your mask.”

Honey smiled.

“Actually, I think you should just let us go. I mean, as you can see, none of us are actually Loren James, and we’re not important at all. Doesn’t it make more sense to go fight that big Bear guy over there?”

Ah.

At first, Lance wasn’t sure what she was doing, but now it was clear.

The assassin wiped at her nose, then slowly lowered her weapon. Her eye was twitching, and it was clear she was trying to resist whatever the spores inside her were doing, but it wasn’t working well. She began gasping like a fish in need of air.

“Lance, just kill her,” Honey said, stooping down to pick up her gun. “And let’s get out of here.”

He absolutely should have.

His hesitation however, would cost him.

The assassin stabbed her short trident into her leg, tearing into the pant leg and gouging a chuck of flesh. Blood ran down her leg as the woman started to regain her composure. Before Lance could bring his gun up to shoot, her scythe edge caught him in the side, slicing deep into his ribs and back.

“Hah…” the assassin said. “An experiment, huh? Good thing...I’m resistant.”

Honey didn’t hesitate. No longer was she lethargically moving, instead, she dropped down to the ground and grabbed Ms. Lenz as cover, then grabbed her dropped gun and shot at the assassin. But the assassin had a shield of her own: using the scythe still cutting into Lance, she pulled him in front of the bullets and he took two shots into his upper shoulder. He shouted in pain.

Mick and Loren had fallen to the side, resting against a wall in fear as the two women stared at each other. Honey, now realizing she couldn’t shoot the assassin, had pressed the barrel of the gun to the disguised Ms. Lenz’s head, and was smiling wickedly. The assassin, on the other hand, stabbed her trident into the wrist that Lance’s was using to hold his pistol. She let the trident fall along with the damaged hand as she took the pistol for herself to use. It was a standoff and neither were ready to make a move.

The battle in the background was progressing still.

Shadow Komodo, in this time, had tried slashing at Bear God, but each time his attacks were deflected by the tire shield. If he could only cut the rubber, he could half this man’s reach, but for some reason, Bear God knew exactly how to block in such a way that prevented that.

On the other hand, even though the russian man was massive, he didn’t lack any speed. He was able to dodge the axe-wielder’s strikes, and counterattack with jabs from the tire, each one coming like a full force shotgun blast to the chest. The two twins were at their wits end trying to deal with this man, and he wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Huh, you know, I think, if I may say, just noticed something,” Bear God said. “You two look pretty similar. I don’t want to seem racist, because I’m not, but do you two, by any chance, happen to be related?”

“You’re a funny one, ha,” Shadow Komodo responded. He was perfectly fine with Bear God talking in the lull, since it gave him and his partner time to catch their breath. “Yes, we are. Twins, actually. Oh, you never learned his name, did you? It’s Nightmare Gator. Not as cool as my name, is it? Oh, and the boss is Dark Cobra.”

“Tch.”

“Wait a minute,” Bear God said. His defense seemed like it had dropped, but the two men knew better. There were no gaps in that wall. “Shadow Komodo? Nightmare Gator? Those names, if I had to say, sound very strange, don’t you think?”

“And Bear God isn’t?”

“Not at all,” Bear God responded with sincerity. “I took this name after killing a bear with my bare hands. It’s a respectful title, because I am very strong.”

“Killed a bear with your bare hands? Is that a joke? Not saying I don’t believe you, but that series of words tickles my funny bone.”

“Uh, really, I don’t get the joke.”

“You don’t?” There was another reason Shadow Komodo had been stalling. From the corner of his vision, he saw Dark Cobra trying to apprehend the escaping targets, and things seemed to be going poorly. He couldn’t hear them, and he couldn’t tell what was going on, but his boss was holding someone as a shield while bleeding down her leg. “The joke is that those words sound the same.”

“Is that a joke? I don’t understand this land’s customs.”

“Yeah,” Shadow Komodo said. He met his brother’s eyes, and began blinking in morse code while simultaneously speaking. “It is a joke. Do you really think that it wasn’t one?”

‘The boss in trouble. I distract man. You help her.’

‘Ok.’

“Huh, I think I understand the joke, it is very funny, and I need to thank you for telling me, because it is funny. So, thank you.”

“Haha, man, you talk kinda weird, you know?” Shadow Komodo asked as he changed blades. Feeling was coming back to his damaged hand, and while he couldn’t dual-wield blades, he could use his special katana. He gripped it and held it up in a samurai stance. “And I’m an africalosman, so I should know a thing or two about weird accents. Now, prepare yourself, because this strike is going to be the last you ever see.”

“Oh? Coming at me, at your very best, like a man, I see,” Bear God said, turning his full attention to Komodo. “Then bring it.”

An absurd series of events happened after that, all starting at the same time immediately after Shadow Komodo made his slash. It was an incredibly fast attack, a blur to normal humans. From upper right to lower left, his blade shone, and it was his ultimate attack. Not even something a normal human could imitate: the special katana needed to make this slash was upgraded with rocket boosters fitted at the end of the sword, and once the button was pressed, would propel the blade in an intense way. When combined with his mastery of the blade, this was an attack that couldn’t be blocked. It was a perfect movement, in respect for the original samurai who developed the katana, those men who Shadow Komodo...no, who Lobo Adogora respected. This slash couldn’t be prevented. It would always strike true.

And in some sense it did. It only stood as testament to how large a human Bear God was that the slash only cut off one of his fingers, along with cleaving straight through the tire he was using as a shield. The only reason it did so much damage was because something else caught Bear God’s eye.

At that very same moment, Nightmare Gator charged at Honey, dragging his axe behind him. In his attack, he spun, like one might do before hurling a shot put, then let himself lift off and be pulled by the momentum. In his mind, he never considered for a single second that the person Honey was holding might be Loren Dames, and just assumed it was one of their members. To him, they were disposable. His head on attack was directed at Honey, and he would cleave through her.

But before either Honey or Dark Cobra noticed that, their stalemate ended. Dark Cobra pushed the scythe forward, the blade cleaving out of Lance’s back and spraying blood out like a wave to obscure Honey’s vision. Taking advantage of that, along with the movement of Lance’s backwards fall, Dark Cobra moved forward, climbing onto his body and standing on his chest to aim her pistol directly at Honey from point black distance.

While she did that, Honey pulled backwards, taking the limp body of Ms. Lenz and dragging it on top of herself like a shield, extending only her arm out, with the tip of the pistol aimed up. The entire sum of movements would put them in line to perfectly blow out each other’s brain, a perfect action of mutually assured destruction.

Their movements spooked Mick, who sprung up and grabbed Loren, pulling him along towards the exit. It was only a few steps away...their escape from the hellish situation that had only lasted a minute.

And finally, two men had been watching the situation carefully, and one finally sprung into action.

Dominic and Wolf had kept themselves hidden by the stairs, and upon seeing Mick and the man in black run, could only assume that Mick was supposed to be Loren Dames. That was the person they needed to save. Even though Bear God, the one man he feared, was fighting off the two death-like figures Wolf could barely look at without feeling despair, he took advantage of that single chaotic moment to burst from his hiding spot and sprint out to the two escaping men. Dominic was close behind him.

As he did, the movement didn’t escape Bear God’s perfect peripherals. His smile grew wider upon seeing his favorite pupil and he turned his head away from Shadow Komodo as the assassin struck. That was the only reason he did not perfectly block the attack.

And Bear God didn’t even realize the pain of losing a finger as he shouted out.

“Wolf! You changed your mind!”

Then, like a bunch of marbles crashing down from a bucket, the aftereffects of that moment hit.

Honey and Dark Cobra pulled the trigger at the same time, but a massive metal axehead came in the way, blocking the shots. The axe buried itself in Lance’s leg, and the already punished man continued screaming as a bullet ricocheted and found itself slicing through the skin of his ear, moving through Dark Cobra’s hair. The bullet Honey shot instead was lucky enough to pound into the bulletproof segments of the armor Ms. Lenz was wearing, though the woman gasped in shock from the pain.

Dark Cobra didn’t miss the feminine voice, even though Nightmare Gator’s body crashed into her and Lance and knocked them over. The three were all wrapped up in a mess of limbs and bodies as they crashed into the wall.

The gun bounced out of her hands as she screamed: “Loren Dames is in the other black suit!”

Hearing his name made Loren stop and turn, but he didn’t wait for long as Mick continued pulling him along. Wolf and Dominic were running over, but compared to everyone else who had just been fighting, those two looked practically harmless.

“Ah, you’re going to ignore me! Fine!”

Without even caring that one of his fingers had been chopped off, Bear God turned his back to Shadow Komodo. But that wasn’t an issue. The giant didn’t know, but after using his technique, Shadow Komodo couldn’t immediately act. The shock from using the rocket boosters on his blade strained his body too much and required him to relax.

Wolf was one of the people who heard what Dark Cobra said. And as he watched the man completely clothed in black move, it seemed like a good enough bet. He needed to get this man out of here, before-

Something flew past his face, and in that moment, it was like he was standing with his nose next to a speeding train.

The object, a tire, slammed into the wall hard enough to crack it, then bounced again, striking another. All in all, it bounced around five times before the trajectory brought it back to Bear God’s hand. The tire was a speeding missile of death, and upon seeing it, every single person in the room realized that if it hit you, it would mean death. Like being struck with a massive bludgeon, it would shatter any of your bones. This was a tactic Wolf knew well.

The true fighting style of the terrorist revolutionary, Bear God, was his ability to instinctively know how to abuse angles.

When he threw a tire, even though he didn’t think about it, the wheel would bounce around until it went where he wanted it to go. He was the type of person who never missed when playing dodgeball, and the type of person who could score a goal as goalie by chucking the ball cross field. With his thrown weapon of choice being one reinforced with a steel inside, and weighing over 50 kilos, it was an extremely dangerous technique.

Seeing it again was almost traumatic for Wolf, who still had tire marks all over his body from being beaten down with it. He had been hoping to escape without being seen by the man, but that wasn’t going to happen any more.

“I said, pay attention to me,” Bear God said. Everyone had their eyes frozen on him. Now that his raw destructive power was unleashed, it became clear that if you stopped focusing on him and dropped your guard, he could instantly kill you from across the room. But even worse was that you wouldn’t know if it was coming; the cruel angles and redirections of the bounce weren’t something a normal person could gauge. Like how prey fears the predator without having ever been eaten, those who saw Bear God’s fighting style knew that if he threw one of those tires, and he chose, someone would die. “Wolf, I didn’t know that you were here. I’m glad you changed, if I understand, your mind.”

Wolf was afraid.

Not just for himself, but because he had a mission. He was afraid he would fail.

“No, Bear God,” Wolf started. He paused as his former leader knitted his brows. “You’re wrong. I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not gonna let you hurt this man.”

“Ohoho, lad, I’m impressed, in a way, but also confused. Do I need to, as unfortunate as it may be, beat you into a pulp again, to make you come to the truth, as painful as it might be?”

In the silence that was Wolf trying to figure out an answer, Dark Cobra had managed to crawl out of the pile she had been stuck in. In the collision, Nightmare Gator had smashed his head and was completely unconscious, and Lance was barely hanging on with his arms pinned underneath the black assassin. She held the point of her mancatcher out at Bear God, but still kept the corner of her eyes on Loren Dames, who was frozen in primal terror from the tire.

“Hey, I don’t really care about your happy family reunion,” she said. “Can you go do it somewhere else? And get the fuck out of here?”

“Huh!? Are you, some random old lady, telling me, Bear God, what to do!?”

There was something in his sentence that triggered one of the only things in Dark Cobra’s mind that angered her. Her grip tightened on her mancatcher, so hard that it started creaking as veins ran up her hand.

“What did you call me?”

“Look, old lady,” Bear God started, almost apologetic in tone. “I don’t know, nor do I care, who you are. But right now, I, and my friends, are coming to beat the shit, not literally, out of Loren Dames. Sorry if I offended you, in a manner of speaking, by calling you old, when you have such a young face. But your body says otherwise. There is nothing wrong with being old, you see, since even I, Bear God, am turning 53 years old this year.”

“You’re...53...and you’re calling me...old?”

“Hmm? Yeah, of course! You’re probably in your sixties, or something like that, right old lady?”

Shadow Komodo, who had been recovering in silence, felt the temperature drop. Normally his boss was cool and collected. But there were times where the facade of her internal fury escaped. She had been running the Black Viper for longer than he knew. Longer than he had been alive. But during those years, she always looked the same. From when he was just a new member until today.

Anyone who asked questions or made assumptions ended up being mutilated.

And when she started laughing, Komodo realized it was the end. Rumors said this happened once before. Back during the forming years of Black Viper, Dark Cobra had lost it. An entire zeppelin of people slaughtered, with only one person leaving, completely doused in blood. If the deadly threat presented by the speeding tire had not been enough to shake Komodo to the core, this was it.

“Is something funny?” Bear God asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. “Another joke? Did I, unaware, make a joke?”

“A joke… a joke…”

She started slowly, then immediately cranked the insanity up to full speed.

“A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE A JOKE AHKK-”

The asian assassin started coughing violently, doubling over to grab at her head. After a second, she looked up. Her eyes were so wide that it looked like the eyelids had torn themselves apart. Actually, it looked like parts of her face were literally splitting. Unraveling themselves.

“What a funny joke? You are so funny! Hilarious! I can’t stop laughing, right? Can’t you hear me laughing?”

She wasn’t laughing.

“Alright. Now that I’ve seen something so funny, I think I’ve had enough with wasting time. I’ll just kill every single person here. Then, we can have a body created to look like Loren Dames. No need actually keeping him alive or trying to fake a suicide. It’ll cost a lot, but that’s fine. All I need to do is take all of your wallets, and it’ll completely make up for my money and time wasted. Right? Okay.”

She nodded to herself. Then, she grabbed the top of her mancatcher and clicked a button. The head of the weapon started sliding down the staff, which began to collapse inwards. The scythe edge closed down, and after the transformation finished, the weapon looked quite unusual. The staff section was only about a meter long, and running along the length of it was the scythe edge. The mancatcher head had split itself, making a single spikey point at the tip of the weapon and another to hold the scythe blade in place. It looked completely unwieldy.

Then the assassin disappeared.

Only Bear God was able to track her movement, and he brought up his tire just in time to deflect her slash, then he was forced to jump backwards, taking a defensive stance for the first time in the combat. The clever trick of the weapon was now clear to him.

When she swung the blade, the spiky and bladed mancatcher head would stab forward, ready to divide flesh. Like a spear, it was easy to predict and block.

But immediately after the stab came the scythe, which was larger and sharper, and came from a considerable distance below. It meant the only way to defend one’s self from this spear was to block twice, and as Bear God watched the woman spin the weapon in her hand, it became clear there wasn’t any amount of defense that could completely block this weapon. And if stabbed with the mancatcher end, the scythe wound snap out and sever you like scissors.

The two were completely still.

Then, faster than any onlooker could perceive, they clashed. The stabs and strikes from Dark Cobra were faster than lightning, and each one struck twice. They came from every direction, and it took everything from Bear God’s ability to predict direction that he could keep himself safe. But even that had limits, as cuts started appearing across his arms and chest as he was forced back, each step coming after a barrage.

Nobody was expecting the rubber tire to pop, not even Bear God.

It sounded like a massive explosion, and the battle between the two took momentary pause as Bear God dropped the metal rim to the ground. He smiled, sweat finally appearing on his brow.

“Well, I wasn’t planning on it, nor did I expect it, but I gotta say, with all due respect, that I’m impressed.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Wait! Boss, hold on!”

Dark Cobra looked to Shadow Komodo, who was still kneeling on the ground holding his damaged arm. She looked ready to kill everything in sight, and he knew it. But his loyalty to the Black Viper was too strong to not say anything.

“Don’t interrupt me.”

“But boss,” Komodo said. “Loren Dames escaped…”

…

Dark Cobra turned her head in the direction of the target. All she could see was Nightmare Gator’s body and axe, along with a bloody trail that went from his body to the door and a cowboy hat. The exit was open, and she couldn’t see anyone in the distance outside.

Bear God saw this at the same time, and realized the situation he was in.

Better live to fight another day!

Before Dark Cobra, or any of the others could do anything, the giant turned and bolted at top speeds in the opposite direction, vaulting over any obstacle before disappearing from sight. His escape was so sudden that Dark Cobra didn’t even realize it until she turned around. Staring at the empty spaces where two target’s she wanted to kill had been, the deep rage that had come to the surface slowly started to simmer.

She tossed her weapon onto the ground and rubbed her temples.

“Ma’am?”

The plan had changed.

“We’re still going to kill them all,” Dark Cobra said, her eyes filled with venom. “Every single one of them. Slowly and painfully. Gather the men and start the chase. We’ll make sure they suffer for what they’ve done...and that means all of them.”