No honor in a bounty hunter’s match to the death. Tenner thought, spinning around. Never was -- only what has to be done for survival. He pressed down the laserpistol’s trigger.

The weapon screeched, blasting beams towards the shadowy figure with a pointed gun.

Valerius tumbled out of the way. The lasers crashed into the wall of ads. Tiny stars poured out and covered the ground. Before they died, red needles of electricity gleamed out of each one.

While Valerius stood in the middle of it all, his pistol thundered its own shots.

There was no time for Tenner to dodge -- his hand jumped up and the briefcase morphed into the shield. Heat flooded it, streams of molten metal dripping down his hand. Tenner ignored the pain as best as he could, his jaw shut.

All the sparks along with a large plot of the ad wall switched off. A ring of darkness formed.

Momentarily, Tenner’s shield became an umbrella whose base was a machine that manufactured charges. What?! His eyes narrowed. Well, I could use this! The mating call of his laserpistol filled his ears. Shriek, sheesh, shriek, sheesh.

For a minute, Centercity flashed with red lights.

Damage messages from Tenner’s burning right hand flooded his vision. Then the laserpistol ceased. He reloaded and returned the briefcase to its natural form.

Valerius was pinned to the wall, but somehow, still alive. His outfit was torn, burnt and soaked.

Axe in hand, Tenner rushed the hunters’ hunter.

“How did you find me?!”

Valerius’s face flashed red four times. At least one shot was sure to hit. And it did. In fact, all four were on target. Tenner’s chest soaked each laser up. The little inconvenience of getting shot slowed him, allowing Valerius to whack in time. The barrel of his gun collided with Tenner’s axe’s blade, shattering, yet the axe still managed to slice Valerius’s palm.

Valerius retracted his arm before any more of it came off and dashed away. The shattered pistol flickered, doing the job of a smoke grenade. When Tenner’s vision returned, a knife had replaced the bounty hunter’s pistol.

The molten metal on Tenner’s hand cooled into a skeleton. “I asked you a question.” As he ran out of the dark ring, his clenching fist cracked the metal. “Kristus hasn’t caught up. So how did your?”

“I might be one, but I’ve countless pairs of eyes.” Valerius stopped, whipping his blood off on his pants. “Bonus of long time in Realm is connection. To other hunters. To masterminds who need untrustworthy Ultimate puppet hunted…”

“All the doubt in my mind’s gone -- she’ll die. But only after I’m done with you.”

“Trying to kill her in afterlife?” Valerius laughed and stabbed. Tenner threw his pelvis back whilst swinging -- the axe clipped the man’s left ear. Little droplets of blood splattered across his face, which somehow remained determined.

Both hunters’ weapons retracted. Valerius’s second stab aimed at Tenner’s knees and managed to leave a four damage slice. Tenner kicked, but missed, chopped, but Valerius dodged. Let’s see how you hold back against this. Tenner threw the axe and shot after it. The hunter dodged it, ending up in the path of a punch.

His jaw rocked and crimson ran down Tenner’s knuckles. Tenner’s other hand started to crush Valeriu’s neck. Tenner wound up a heavy punch and dropped it. A scream echoed under his knuckles. He repeated for a minute, firing up every perk to give each punch more impact.

Valerius stopped twitching. Tenner inspected to be sure and disappeared.

***

Valerius’s nose was crushed, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. He spent a good five minutes spewing out blood then blinked with one eye: the other had been blinded. The bounty hunter struggled to his feet, picked a direction and aimlessly stumbled towards it. His health had fallen to less than a fifth of his bar. A miracle could only save him.

The half-corpse reached the Electrical Tower and leaned against one of its support beams, heaving for air. Once he screamed for help, not a murmur or a shuffle came from the darkness. He screamed again. But this time out of pain.

Tenner’s wire wrapped around the bounty hunter’s neck and pulled him up. It wasn’t hard to slash a cable, bear through its shock, wait for Valerius to wander here and hang him. But it was satisfying. Seeing the corpse twitch, gasp for air, and the scum hiding on the Electrical Tower stare in horror -- all of it gave Tenner a rush incomparable to even [Last Word Giver]’s boost.

The body went still. Tenner’s EXP went up a little. He let go and the corpse slammed into the ground, kicking up dirt.

Tenner realized-- he realized the scum that stared was a familiar breed. The dozens of eyes that rested on the Electrical Tower’s rebars far above the ground hadn’t met Tenner’s in forever. But they were the first note in the hunt’s song.

Ames Cap’s gang parkoured down the sides of the tower and ran into the night streets of Realm 224.

Tenner jumped and landed beside Valerius.

Just because the bandits brought a great lesson didn’t mean they couldn’t bring him great rage too.

The city flashed by in what felt like moments. First, the bright walls of Centercity disappeared, then, Ames’ gang dashed through the plaza, all separating in different directions. Tenner chose Ames to follow -- the bandits would come after their leader eventually.

Infrequent deep breaths chilled his blazing body. The wounds Valerius inflicted rubbed against his clothes. Tenner stored the screams that would erupt from his mouth in his mind, focusing on the bandit ahead. Eventually, the pain became fuel for his legs which ran on their own. It was animal.

Ames headed for the sole district Tenner hadn’t visited -- The Sparks. The talk on the street promised it contained a whole lot of bad. He had to stop her before she reached it.

The closer the holographic text over the district neared, the buzzier the air became. Tenner’s breaths stopped cooling and started making his skin crawl, like if millions of invisible sparks floated in the air.

Ames used the main streets. Tenner neared, about to catch her. Then Ames flung herself left, into an alley which led through open shanty apartments and warehouses. By the time she emerged on another main street, Tenner dragged a serious distance.

For a flash, he became aware of his surroundings. Via Light. He froze and broke through the front door of a small shop. Well, almost. Even though she keeps to a mostly straight path, she isn’t dumb enough to go into that shitstorm.

The alleys around the shops quite a distance from Via Light’s brightest part Tenner could navigate with a thousand-credit-worth knife’s precision. And his instincts told him where Ames would run to.

She’s either trying to lose me or run to a hideout, and The Sparks is a place one doesn’t just go to have a jog in.

Shopkeepers and guards rumbled behind Tenner as he dashed up to the shop’s third floor and smashed through the window, landing in an alley behind it. Ames froze, glass raining on her, and turned to Tenner. He rolled to his feet and kept running… away from her.

“What?” the bandit uttered.

Then, two of her cronies entered the alley, right in Tenner’s path. He jumpkicked the one on the right, hopped off his body and onto the second’s back. He started strangling the bandit who seemed like a bounty hunter. I’m on a roll of clearing out my worthless competition, Tenner thought and forced the bandit to the ground. As punches littered his face and chest, he took his axe and chopped the man’s neck. Tenner’s other hand stole his laserpistol and blindly blasted behind him. The weapon screeched and a body thumped to the floor.

Eyes wide, Ames pointed a laserpistol in Tenner’s face, all while three more cronies came in through the entrance behind her. Tenner jumped to his feet. Running, the laserpistol in his hands shot the one out of Ames’ and hit another’s leg. He put it under his belt and gripped his axe, into the ranks of the three bandits. They surrounded him, but one was crouched, gripping his bleeding leg. Tenner would ignore that one. And pay attention to the muscled hench who had stood in his path when he first chased Ames.

Let’s see how you fare now! Tenner swung at a relentless speed. The hench blocked each chop, but every time he did, his muscles cracked and bloodied. The bandit behind Tenner grabbed his back. Tenner threw his axe over his head. Something wet splashed onto the back of his head and the face of the hench ahead soured.

At that moment, Tenner drew his laserpistol and blasted the hench with ten shots. He turned to the crouched one, kicked his face and spun to Ames, who ran at Tenner. He unleashed a few lasers towards her, chucked the pistol away and grabbed his axe.

Ames jumped. Tenner dodged and chopped. She ducked. He stomped on her foot. She tripped, towards the laserpistol Tenner had dropped. He jumped after Ames, pinning her to the ground by the neck with his axe then lodged the pistol into her forehead.

“You think you could fool Tenshot twice?” Tenner said, an uncontrollable smirk on his face. It dripped with boiling sweat while the blood in his veins turned to lava. “Or even once?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Ames furrowed her brows. “I didn’t try to fool you. Ever. You were just a passerby bounty hunter who chose my contract at random… You know how many bounty hunters we scam every day? Because even I don’t...”

“You’re saying that I’m an idiot?!” The veins throbbed from his rage.

“You were a rookie who fell for a basic scam. Now you’re… far from that. And I realize I should have told everyone to shut up while we waited on that tower. Didn’t know you took everything so damn personally.”

Tenner grunted. Why didn’t he blast her brains out? He was furious and could get his revenge, but he just held the pistol to her forehead, staring.

“If you’re waiting for me to beg, your effort is in vain,” Ames said. “I know how this world works. I know the risks and what happens when odds are against my favor. This was going to happen sooner or later, I just wanted to think I was special and it wouldn’t happen to me, not at this moment.”

Slowly, the frown faded from Tenner’s face. I’m waiting for her last words so I’d get the [Last Word Giver] boost, that’s all! At the same time, the bandit continued.

“From day one I was a fool. Tried to save one gang. Failed. And tried again. As you see now, pointing that thing at my face, I don’t fucking learn. You did and I congratulate you for that, but damn was the cost high -- how many people minding their own business did you slaughter.”

“Don’t try to guilt me,” Tenner said through his teeth. “I only kill the scum of the world or those who are trying to kill me.”

“You definitely did.” Ames rolled her eyes. “If you spout that sort of bullshit, you might as well splatter my brains now--”

“Such disrespect--”

“The truth! Get out of your own asshole: you slaughtered people to raise your level. Villains do that, but sure as shit, not heroes. I mean, did you even think about it? There are maybe half a dozen scum of the world in this whole Realm and the same amount of those who want to kill you, and most of them are in Centercity. And you went around the slums, murdering people while they slept,” Ames snapped. “None of them were perfect, but also they weren’t evil, just forced to live off the scraps of the scraps. You think anybody, except for my dumb ass, wants to be in a gang or live in the slums?! I scammed and stole from people to keep a gang alive. I’m a bandit in a lawless world. You murdered hundreds of innocents to get what you wanted. You’re the villain in a world of evil. Now fucking shoot me already!”

The sweat dried from Tenner’s face, and he didn’t want to kill her anymore. Yes, after dreaming of revenge during his potion-induced crashes, chasing her and slaughtering the gang, the burning need to see Ames Cap dead went out.

I can’t let all this effort go to waste! He tried convincing himself.

His vision blurred, his hearing faded and his mind returned to a scary, yet familiar place, the one whose depths he’d spent hours exploring whilst his body stood in Centerplaza. Both times his entire existence changed.

Then he’d been filled with fury. Now shame took its place.

The pale faces of who he’d wronged, evil or bad at choosing their path home, played. All that blood. Worst of all, there had been a satisfied grin on his face -- he loved it. He knew that he was helping the world while raising his levels.

Klitch appeared. His moustache was still bloody and his clothes were still torn. The Hood of Centercity tapped Tenner’s shoulder and gave him the smile that said, “I’d rather get caught by a friend than an enemy.”

Tenner’s illusion came crashing down, with it, the gun from his hand.

He wasn’t a killer in the name of saving the world.

He was a killer--

A heavy slap landed on his cheek and the sound reverberated through the alley. Tenner fell to his haunches and grunted.

“So?” Ames stared at him, her eyes like lasers.

Tenner raised an eyebrow.

“For the third fucking time -- can I join you?”

Tenner took in his surroundings then laughed as he got to his feet. The slap, or the overuse of perks, really messed with his perception.

“Answer me, you fucker!!”

I think… she’s not lying.

“You answered yourself,” he said. “I’m nothing more than a fucker. A killer in the name of free level-ups and creds. You shouldn’t join me -- you shouldn’t even ever see my face again.”

“Ah, I think that’s a no…”

Tenner walked towards the exit of the alley. Before making the turn, he stopped and asked “Why? Why would you want to join me after all I did to your gang and to the slums?”

“Remember those 50C$ I repoed from you? They came in real handy.”

“That’s the dumbest--”

“That’s a joke,” Ames fixed Tenner like so many had before her and explained how she ended up a bandit, finishing with, “Had a good run then we got caught and killed.”

“Except for you,” Tenner finished her words.

A panful smile rose on her face. “After that traumatising experience, I did what any reasonable person would.”

“You did it all over again.”

“How’d you guess?” She threw her head back and winked. “Yeah… And it took me a while to realize my mistake… Or… The fallacy of my dream. I was trying to become a legend in a world where you joined the strongest for a chance of survival. I always joined groups at their lowest point.”

“You think I’m one of the strongest and you wanna join me to survive. I’m not. I couldn’t even be honest with myself. Certainly, I survived a fall from the sky, though that’s not the type of strength you need. Thanks for trying -- no.”

“I need the type of strength to get me out of this Realm,” her words caught for a moment,” show me the desolation and the rest of the damn world!”

“Become a pilot.” Tenner turned and left the alley, heading straight for The Sparks. He wasn’t sure about letting himself live or any question, really. His focus was set on one thing: getting to Gi’s workshop and getting the fuck out of here.

Ames’s eyes set on him. “I could offer you an Ultimate.”

He stopped.

“In Centercity is a secret temple, a job and a prize that could run a gang for a decade!”

I am really not in the mood… Tenner returned to his pace: once he couldn’t feel her gaze, a burst of swift footfalls sounded behind him. You are one stubborn bandit. He swerved into Via Light’s main street.

The feeling on his back died and any trace of her footfalls faded.