Chapter 20: A Fight to the Death

Jacob Pembroke lay alone in his slightly-too-small bed, staring at the ceiling. It was balmy in their warm little home, and the room had a dog-musk smell that put Jacob at ease. It was his husband's smell, even if it might be unpleasant to an outsider. The house that he shared with his husband was too narrow, and he couldn't fit a king-size into their thin bedroom fully assembled. Thusly, a queen it was. His feet dangled off the edge, but it never bothered him. As long as Laddie was comfortable, that was enough for him.

That got Jacob thinking about his husband. Yes, he really appreciated everything that Laddie did for him. Just now, while Jacob had long since retired from his new job at Regency Academy, Laddie was still there tinkering with his machines overnight. He worked himself too hard, but it was so that they both could be safe, comfortable and happy.

The man's new job had good pay, granted him the honour of passing the torch to the next generation, and gave him a degree of safety from the death-defying industry of heroics. It was ironic, but Laddie was protecting Jacob, in a way.

Jacob did not like to be protected. He liked to be strong. He loved his husband, but his urge was undeniable. He still had that itch. The immutable ember of heroics shared by all pros was still burning bright in his chest. He could feel his hero costume gathering dust in the closet. Despite Laddie's efforts, he couldn't stay away.

Jacob took his phone in his hand and dialled a number. Seven, seven, eight.

"Hello, you've reached the National Hero Service public inquiry line. How may I help you?" The voice was familiar to Jacob. This was the man who had been handling the seldom-used line since Jacob was in the National Hero Service himself.

"Avery, is that you?" Jacob asked, crossing his legs and putting his hands behind his head. It felt good to be doing this. Natural, even.

"Jake? Son of a bitch, what can I do for ya'?" Avery dropped his professional tone the instant he heard his old friend on the other end of the line. He had the voice of a proper bloke.

"I'd like to call in a favour, old chum. I want you to put me back on the National Hero Service. Just some small jobs. My available hours are between ten PM and eight AM. Also, don't tell Laddie!"

"That's a corker! It'll be a pleasure havin' you back, Bulldog. In fact, are you currently indisposed?"

"No, why?"

"I might've just got something for you. Mugger with a 'scary quirk' on a tube got on the Victoria line at King's Cross and just departed from Warren street, on his way to Oxford Circus."

"Oxford circus? I can be there in five minutes!"

"Excellent mate, it's all yours."

Jacob hung up the phone.

"Such a pleasure talking to Avery again. It's so easy with him!" He thought, throwing the closet doors open. He donned the collar and became the Bulldog once again. In the very back of his mind, he heard a niggling voice that felt as though this was somehow betraying Laddie's trust. He pushed the voice away. He wasn't about to feel guilty for stopping a mugging, for god's sake! Besides, what's the worst that could happen?

-OXFORD CIRCUS, FIVE MINUTES LATER-

"It's you…"

"Doing muggings now, are we?" Jacob said sternly.

"An acquaintance of yours, Dire?" Redd asked. Dylan noted that the senior villain referred to him by his alias. Suddenly, Dylan's knees stopped knocking together. He was filled with an emotion other than fear. Jacob felt it come off him and took a step back. A genuine malefic aura. The emotion was a mix of anger and excitement. Violence and enthusiasm. Bloodlust.

"Nobody you gotta worry about, Redd," Dylan growled, smiling. Jacob was a cut above what you would usually see from the National Hero Service. This was about the toughest matchup Dylan could have asked for. Why was he so eager? It was simple. He had wanted a rematch. This was the single most hateable face that could have been on the other side of that door. Dylan relaxed. A foe that he knew. A foe that he would enjoy taking out. He could not have asked for better.

"Who's your pal, pup? This is a mote more serious than graffiti, you realise? I was willing to let the assault go, but you'll be charged to the full extent-"

"Shut it, Bull-dogshit," Dylan was proud of that one. "We aren't here to have a friendly fucking chat. You aren't here to sit me down and tell me off."

"Right you are," Jacob sighed. He doffed his trenchcoat. He didn't want to hurt the kid too badly, but that was the glare of a boy prepared for murder. He was disappointed in himself. There was potential in the kid. His graffiti wasn't half-bad, from an artistic point of view. He would rather have rehabilitated him. But based on this new company, and that aura, he was too far gone. This was the path he had chosen. All Jacob could do was give him what he so clearly wanted.

Jacob wore a spiked leather collar. The same he had on during the pair's previous meeting. It's silvery points glinted flashily. Straining over his barrel chest, the hero wore a skin-tight tank top with the union jack printed seamlessly on both front and back. A chain belt did little to hold up his already tight running shorts. His thick work boots were steel-toed with studs on the front to echo the spikes on his collar. It sure would hurt to get kicked by a pair like that. It was rare that Jacob kicked, though. He much preferred working with his hands.

Jacob sprung into action while Dylan was still haplessly sizing him up. The hero wound up his whole body, bringing his fist all the way back. Every muscle went into it. All the way down to his ass, his muscles bent until his fist scraped the floor. Each fibre contracted with the force of a crossbow string, sending his torso, shoulder, arm, forearm, wrist, and each knuckle joint catapulting and spinning forward in sequence. All of their speed added together and multiplied. Jacob's form was like a baseball pitcher, except all that he was pitching was his own balled fist. Were he allowed to compete, he would have broken a world record with that. A flawless strike.

"Greyhound Perfecta: First Place Punch,"

Dylan was off his feet an instant after the fight began. The epic force of Jacob's haymaker sent him so high that he cleared the chairs, his back slamming into the perspex window so hard that it cracked all over, spidering into a complex and beautiful pattern. Dylan vomited a handful of blood and fell onto Redd's lap, who pushed him off with a grunt of anger.

"You took that one like a champ!" Said Jacob, somewhat sarcastically. Dylan had managed to block by holding up his arms. A whole lot of good that did him. The bones were certainly bruised if not lightly broken, as were several of his ribs, one femur and his pelvis. Needless to say, his Xiao-Lee force redistribution technique hadn't worked as well as he had wanted it too.

Why then, did he feel no pain? Endorphins. Adrenaline. The dial-in his brain that told him 'fight or flight' had planted firmly in flight. He was so hopped up that rather than cry out in pain, he laughed. Perhaps he was just in shock.

"So… you're taking me seriously as an opponent?" Dylan glowered. He employed the technique of the manifold voice, and his cacophonous words echoed around the innards of the train, tumbling forth from several maws. Blood still ran down his chin. His eyes narrowed, and his face wrinkled. The visage of a devil. "How about I show you how much I've improved with my quirk since we last met?"

Dylan hit the ground running. He spun around halfway and swung his fist sideways at the hero. The pro's backstep was a centimetre or so too short. A thin line of blood pushed its way out of the new cut in his tank top.

"New tricks?" Jacob supposed, not even feeling pain.

"You'd be right, Shitbull~" Dylan quipped. Jacob rolled his eyes. The boy shoved the back of his hand forth to show off his new weapons. A jaw, one on the back of his hand. It was positioned so that the bottom lip dipped across the knuckles, and it was no human mouth that Jacob ever saw sparing those on a mutant.

Serrated tusks, long and slender, stuck out from the black gums looking like a set of brass knuckles.

"Devil Denture Fist,"

"I've been learning how to copy different types of teeth. Shark, chimpanzee, hippo, crocodile… I can mix em all together into whatever combination I want, and put em wherever's convenient. The perfect natural weapons, wouldn't you agree?"

Jacob responded with a quick, exploratory jab. Dylan met it with a full force jab of his own, tooth encrusted, of course. The ivory blades cut into Jacob's supple finger meat, and he brought back a fist covered in blood.

"Not bad, you've certainly gotten better since the last time we met. If only a little," Jacob admitted. It wasn't like he wanted to encourage this behaviour, but his honesty shone through. That being said, it wasn't like he had gotten serious himself. Jacob balled his fist, properly this time. His muscles hardened right up as he curled his fingers in turn and locked them with his fat, stocky thumb. The tightening was strong enough to cut off the blood flow and stem any bleeding. Jacob put some bollock into his next punch. It wasn't a jab anymore, it was a strong left straight.

Dylan struck back, their fists meeting in the middle once again. Dylan's fist quivered from the blow and his teeth knuckle cracked and fell apart. His wrist sprained and his arm rebounded off the iron hide of the Bulldog. In the pissing contest of who's punch beat who's, Jacob was the clear winner. The bigger man smiled sweetly, while the boy grimaced in pain and disgust.

"A whole lot of good that did, huh?" Said Jacob. Dylan roared and ran at the hero, his arms out. He leapt and threw his body onto the hero's torso. This wasn't like his pansy tackle for last time. He had come with a plan. A technique specially made for Jacob.

"Devil's Mouth Grappling,"

Jacob felt teeth sink into his torso. Lots of teeth. They snaked around, curving into his muscular tissue and taking solid root. Pulling them out was a non-option. Dylan's technique was a success, in so far as what he was aiming for was achieved.

"Try smacking me off now, you son of a bitch," He sneered. From the tips of his fingers, the inside of his limbs, his stomach, his legs and down to his toes, teeth protruded and took a collective, full-body bite out of Jacob. It stung a bit, for sure.

"Do you… call this grappling?" Jacob asked, sounding offended.

"What else do you fucking call it?" Dylan scowled, gripping tighter. Jacob scoffed.

"Listen close, boy. You've entered my ballpark now. Striking isnt so much my thing, I much prefer a good wrestle."

"So?"

"The first rule of grappling… No… the whole darn point of it in the first place is to hold the other fellow down, got me? Pin their limbs, suppress them, so forth…"

Dylan realised where Jacob was going with this. Both arms and both legs were free. Also, he was stuck. This secret technique for taking Jacob down wasn't as well thought through as he had hoped. Though in his defence, Jacob hadn't ever needed to use wrestling on him the last time.

The dog mutant flexed imposingly and wrapped his arms around Dylan.

"And if it was a bear hug you were going for, you've ballsed that up as well. Let me show you how it's done, why don't I?"

Jacob showed no mercy, applying full force. Dylan's back was mangled into a near ninety-degree angle. As the air was pushed out of his lungs, he didn't find the breath to cry out in pain, but he did manage to gurgle a whole lot. The tooth spikes dug into Jacob a bit further, but he wasn't bothered. He'd been through much worse. Dylan was having a much worse time.

Jacob finished off the bear hug with a heave, sort of like a twisted Heimlich manoeuvre. Dylan upchucked bile onto the man's face and chest, before going limp from the absence of his grasp. Dylan's grip had faded totally in the presence of an overwhelmingly greater force. Now, the only thing holding him onto Jacob was his own toothy spikes. The pro stretched out his arms, and let himself tip forward.

He topped the tipping off with a light jump, and with the bravado of a pro wrestler, he body-slammed Dylan onto the floor of the train. He must weigh at least three times as much as the twiggy little Dylan, who scrambled around under him as an upside-down insect would under your thumb. His slaps did less than nothing to Jacob, who exerted no effort in his imposing technique. Gravity did all the work. The sophisticated wrestling style that had served Jacob well his whole career would not be outdone by this lout and his internet karate tutorials.

Yes, Dylan was a level of skinny that Jacob wasn't used to fighting. Call it malnutrition or unlucky genetics, but he was a stick insect under the baggy clothing. This was his only advantage. Jacob wasn't quite sure how much force would keep him down and how much would crunch him into powder, so he erred on the side of caution, and gave the boy just a bit of wriggling room. This wasn't something Dylan realised, at least, not the theory behind it, only something that he was able to desperately capitalise on.

Dylan slipped his tiny arms out from under Jacob's girthy barrel chest. The Bulldog's eyebrows raised as the little kid underneath him was suddenly aiming a double-sided chop at both sides of his neck.

There was a crunching sound, like trying to bite into bone, and then something akin to the sound and feeling of trying to rip tough leather apart. Dylan sunk his teeth into Jacob's neck. Barely, anyway. Not even far enough to draw a pinprick of blood.

"What are you trying to achieve here exactly, boy?" Jacob inquired with genuine curiosity. His hound's hide was far too durable to be chewed through by such a small pair of jaws as those that Dylan could fit onto his feminine wrists. Dylan knew it. He also knew that no matter how small the jaws were, they had a better bite strength than his own grip. He needed only to apply a bit more force…

"Oh… I see…" Jacob hummed lazily. He started to feel a bit dizzy. Lightheadedness came over him, and darkness entered his field of vision right around the edges. The culprit was the carotid artery, or rather what Dylan was doing to it. Maybe he had planned to bite right through, but even this somewhat poor looking contingency was forceful enough to apply pressure to the place where the blood flowed to Jacob's brain. His own strong flesh was being pressed into his neck, and it was blocking oxygen to his starving mind. "A semi-decent application, but let me show you how the pro's do it…"

Jacob lifted an immense arm and slowly, finger by finger, gripped Dylan by the wrist. Taking him time, he started to gradually push. The jaws came away quickly, and Dylan's hand started to be pushed down. The boy let go with his other hand and used it to prop himself up against the ground, pushing with everything he had. It was quite simply not enough. Jacob thrust the boy's own arm over his neck and lifted it up. The muscles contracted like a noose. Dylan's shoulder screeched with pain, threatening dislocation at any second. Furthermore, he felt his own arteries backing up.

"Flea Collar Strangulation."

Jacob was choking Dylan out with his own arm. He'd managed to wrap it all the way around the boy's neck and hold it there with the brute strength of one hand alone. Worse still, Dylan hadn't come an inch closer to getting the titanic dog mutant off of him, and he was starting to lose feeling from the waist down.

He had one more lifeline. That free hand of his, the one that Jacob wasn't paying particular attention to. Dylan, still slowly choking, placed his palm to the ground and bit down. Jacob raised his other hand, preferring to knock the boy out in one merciful blow than watch him splutter until he went to sleep. He left an opening, unwittingly.

Dylan stabbed.

Blood fell on his chest. Not his blood, the blood of the bulldog. These teeth of his were strong. Strong enough to perhaps rip a chunk of metal out of the cold train floor. Maybe that would be sharp enough to cut through the Bulldog's hide? That was his thinking. The stainless steel shank was sticking out of Jacob's neck, about three centimetres deep. Blood was coming out. A lot of blood. His muscles had stopped the blade from going any deeper, but Jacob was hurting. For the first time, Dylan had properly wounded the giant.

Jacob reared back, putting both his hands over the gushing wound. With that bit of breathing room, Dylan managed to scramble away from the super heavy press. Redd was delighted. They were hopping a little in their seat and leaning forward, to get a good look at the action. When Jacob had opened with the First Place Punch, Redd thought it had ended before it started. Every second that Dylan stayed in it past that was shattering their expectations. Their optimism was paying off.

It wouldn't stay that way for long. Panting, Jacob rended the metal shank with his bare fingers, breaking the main body off and leaving a chunk in the wound to stem the bleeding. Then, he flexed the vessels closed to the best of his ability. Blood came all the way down his neck and was pooling along his collar bone.

"Shooting to kill, my boy?" He said, his heroic lilt still present through his pained gritting of the teeth. "That's attempted murder, lad. Though, if you come quietly I can downgrade it to assault with a deadly weapon."

"Eat shit!" Dylan hissed, shaking his legs awake and standing himself up against a nearby pole. Once he got feeling back, you bet that he was going right back for the throat. Jacob had a different look in his eye. He finally recognised Dylan as a threat. He was serious from here on out. The boy was at first glad. That changed when Jacob began his next attack.

Knees bent. Left shoulder forward, and pressed up against the neck like a shield. Right arm in tight. Right foot forward, veins bulging in preparation for an intense effort. This was a tackle. A high tackle. Not the type you see in England, where the contact sports don't allow armour. It was more like an American style tackle, though not exactly. It was the type of tackle you don't do unless you're wearing shoulder pads and a helmet. That, or you're a freakishly strong and durable dog hybrid who was looking to end a fight quickly. It was not designed to knock you over, or even push you. It was designed to strike with the full weight and power of the person using it. If they got thrown back or knocked down, that was just icing on the cake. It was less of a tackle and more of a technique to turn your body into a person-sized fist.

As Dylan stared the tackle down, he understood why deer sometimes don't run out of the way of oncoming cars. He was frozen solid. Jacob charged. His every step made the train jump up and down and rattle, causing a violent thrum to fill the carriage. His speed and acceleration were equivalent to a prime greyhound. His shoulder seemed to enlarge into something like a battering ram, though it was just Dylan's warped perspective. With nowhere to run in the narrow carriage, and Dylan's knees knocking together too strongly anyway, the attack landed.

"Greyhound Perfecta: First Place Tackle,"

Dylan went through the door at his back and took it with him for the ride. His momentum carried into the next door, which bent backwards but was spared from breaking by the cushioning of another door that was ripped from its mechanism microseconds earlier. The tackle had carried him into the space between train cars, where it was cramped and there was a draft coming through the perforations in the train's rubber connective tissue.

Dylan spat some more blood. There went the rest of his ribs. He slid off the domed indoors and was on his feet back in the carriage where he had come from. He crunched bits of glass underfoot. Those had come from the door. Jacob was still there, looking at him disapprovingly. The only thing keeping him standing was paralyzing fear in the muscles around his knees, which stopped them from caving in.

"If I were you, pup, I'd've stayed down," He sighed. In his state near unconsciousness, Dylan's judgement was murky. He made the inadvisable decision to shrug sarcastically.

"What can I say, dickhead," He spat, still bleeding from the mouth. He hocked a ball of bloody slime onto Jacob's boots, and a couple of teeth came with it.

Jacob started another tackle.

Dylan's intuition spoke to him in lieu of his instincts. When he tried to think of what happened next, it gave him a strong and simple message. In the short moment's while Jacob's titanic torso barreled towards him, all that his limited power of prediction could say was…

"Lose… You are going to lose… right here…"

Dylan got hit by what felt like an oncoming bus. He howled like a wounded puppy and was thrown back a half step before Jacob entered the second phase of the tackle. With extreme muscular propulsion force, his arms shot out and hooked the back of Dylan's knees. The hero threw the boy skyward like he was flipping a table, and Dylan spun three or four times in place, splattering his nose bleed in a straight line perpendicular to the train.

"It's been so long since I've had a good scrum," Jacob grinned. "But it's last call, my boy."

Dylan was still spinning, and not any closer to falling down. Jacob reared back and drew his arm like a bowstring. His muscles bulged in preparation, and his front foot lifted slightly off the ground from the extremeness of his lean. It was just the same as his opener.

"Greyhound…"

Dylan threw up a block. He shielded his face and closed his eyes. Pointless, really. If he weren't spinning like a sideways top he might see that the punch was aimed for the gut.

"Perfecta!"

Gravity took Dylan just as the ballista shot punch was launched. Dylan's back hit the dirty metal train floor just as Jacob's ballistic missile fist started to scrape the pocket on the front of his hoodie.

The punch didn't connect. At least, it didn't feel like it. On Jacob's end, he was dumbfounded. Sure, the man had struck the boy as he was falling away, so perhaps he hadn't accounted for that one hundred per cent correctly, but the margin of error he would reasonably apply didn't account for a discrepancy this serious.

It didn't feel like his fist connected with anything. Not even as though it scraped flesh. It felt like he had hit empty air past the hoodie. Like he was punching into some kind of cavity or...

Ah yes, like he was punching into a big open mouth.

"Gluttony Devil Gambit,"

There was a sickening crunch. A revolting, flesh tingling, skin-crawling crunch. Then, a wet ripping noise, and the consequent sound of a lot of liquid splashing over metal. Jacob took his arm back. Well, whatever was left of it.

The strength of the maws increased with size, he supposed. And he had only decided to hit the lad at the widest point of his uncurved body. The humongous mouth poked out of the hole that Dylan had bit into his hoodie, turning it into an improvised crop top. Hippo tusks, and what looked like Trex canines. No wonder his arm had come off.

For the moment being, Jacob was in shock. This was the time he had to consider the best course of action for dealing with the injury. He took a good look at it, moving his spectacles up his nose. The hand was completely gone. He only had about a third of his forearm left. Luckily, it was very clean. Jacob silently prided the boy on his excellent cutting power, he had basically managed to make a flat cut.

"What the hell am I gonna say to my partner?" Jacob laughed. A master of staying calm in tense situations. He noticed himself getting delirious, and he noticed the buckets of blood he was haemorrhaging. Jacob ripped off his shirt and placed it over the stump. He twirled, twisted, tied and balled it up with all of his mutant strength, the wetness of his own blood adding to the tensile strength of the tourniquet. The force of his muscles contracting did the rest of the work. Although, the focus he put on that area was enough that his neck and several of the larger puncture wounds on his chest started oozing again. He would need medical attention after this.

After.

Dylan fought as a man possessed. Somehow, he was back on his two legs and riding high from the mortal wound he inflicted. The adrenaline was letting him ignore the pain. His stomach-mouth still closed around Jacob's severed arm. He was holding it there like a trophy, or a reminder.

Redd was on the edge of his seat, giddily laughing at the gory spectacle.

"I'll get to you," Jacob pointed with his good hand. Redd laughed even louder at the hero. Dylan was on top of him already. Should've paid more attention.

Dylan spun wildly, thrashing his arms and striking Jacob repeatedly. His fists moved like the tip of a whip and repetitively cracked against Jacob's granite chin. Each time, the row of weaponised teeth that topped the knuckles burst and exploded like a shrapnel bomb. The desperate, savage, primitive, relentless windmill punches refused to stop. One knocked the hero's glasses off, another cut into his lip and made him drool pink bloody spittle. Several were aimed at the punctures and cuts on his chest and neck, widening the small injuries that were already there.

Jacob was weak now. He lost blood. He used his stamina up. He couldn't focus or see very well. He couldn't strike with his left arm. He couldn't block on his left side. He actually, amazingly, started to get beaten back. This was the hardest Dylan had ever fought in his life. It was the farthest that he'd ever pushed his body. He was seeing red. Jacob was right in front of him, reeling. Inches from defeat. He only had to push a little harder. Keep going for maybe a couple more seconds. Screw defending. He only attacked. Attack, attack attack.

"Just keep hitting him," Dylan's mind worried about nothing else. His strategy was working. His strategy had worked. It had worked. It had worked in the sense that at one point it was working.

And now? It hadn't.

"Greyhound Perfecta: First Place Elbow!"

With. The. Stump.

Dylan's body crumpled around Jacob's injured arm. His shoes and socks were quite literally knocked off. He had struck with the useless, crippled left arm. The injured left arm. The one that Dylan had been ignoring totally even when he put effort into defence. He was blindsided so perfectly that he had no words to say and no energy to cry out in pain. He just slumped to the floor.

"Boy am I glad that worked!" Jacob huffed happily. His face had seen better days. It was bruised and puffy from Dylan's assault. Had he not been able to adapt his elbow technique to work with a severed arm, turning it into some kind of maladaptive punch, then his fate would have been sealed. That was the difference that experience made. Jacob tipped his proverbial hat to Dylan for giving him a hard time. "Truth be told, I wouldn't put this in my top thirty hardest fights. Though you were the first to take my bally arm off."

Jacob approached.

"I'm afraid I can't leave it at just that though, pup. Given your track record, I would be amiss not to finish it off. This is my strongest technique. Consider it a sign of respect."

Jacob peeled Dylan off the floor and flipped him upside down. Ge gripped him as well as he could, and then he dropped.

"Full Power: Hound Pit Piledriver!"

Somewhere else entirely, a great cathedral bell the size of ten men started to gong. The sound was comparable between the two events. As was the force, and as was the shape of the metal. The train would have a hard time running with a dent that size in the bottom of it, but Jacob was sure it could manage.

"And now, onto your friend…"

Redd and Jacob looked at each other, and Redd sighed.

Dylan lay in a bent, buckled crater of distended metal on the bottom of the tube. He was submerged in a pool of blood, sweat and tears. Under the hoodie, Dylan felt a bone sticking out of his arm. He couldn't feel his legs at all for the moment being. He was concussed for sure. His fingers shook from the number and volume of substances his brain sent through him to numb the excruciating pain.

Before him, The Bulldog had turned his back. A gesture of total victory. Dylan choked back yet more tears. Another fucking failure. Jacob had turned his attention to Redd now. The atmosphere was all different. It had receded back into tensity, rather than the aura of violent release. Redd, or Jacob? Dylan wondered who was tougher. He hadn't seen anything that the communist could do, but Jacob was severely injured. It was totally up in the air.

Dylan felt a continuous vibration against his bruised pelvis. It sent a shockwave of agony up and down him, and he scrambled for his burner phone with the usable hand he had left. Dylan didn't get any service down here, and no wifi signal. Nevertheless, he had a notification. A message on a brand new THEATR account, from an unknown source.

Dylan curled into the fetal position pathetically and held the phone to his face.

USER /ER4/ STARTED MESSAGING USER "NewUser"

[]: You are on the ground

NewUser: Who the fc

NewUser: The fuck are you mo

NewUser: Now?

[]: You are having difficulties with the interface

[]:?

NewUser: If your another on of these unin fuckers

NewUser: Please Im not in the modo

NewUser: Mood for this

NewUser: SHIT

NewUser: Right now

NewUser: I can barly uuse this fukcing keypad

NewUser: And incas you didnt noticee

NewUser: From yur long range physic vantag point

NewUser: Or whatevr

NewUser: Im basically crippld ATM

NewUser: I got my as handed too me

NewUser: I lost

NewUser: I failed the test

[]: You have not lost yet

NewUser: Dont give me any believ in yourself shit

NewUser: I swer to god

[]: It is a mere statement of fact. The victory condition for your opponent is to take you into custody. Your victory condition is to kill your opponent. Neither outcome has yet come to pass, thusly the proverbial coin is still up in the proverbial air

[]: ?

NewUser: Oky wise asss

NewUser: Whats my mov from here?

NewUser: Wats my next play?

NewUser: I kno, I can pretend tat he perma crippled me

NewUser: Mak like my legs dnt work

NewUser: Ten whil he takin pity on me

NewUser: I can cut his throt with this bone thats stikcing out my amr

NewUser: Hows that sond?

NewUser: PRICK

[]: You are desperate. That is good. It is good for a predator to be desperate. That is the natural state.

NewUser: What the fuc ar you on abt?

[]: Consider the cheetah. The cheetah is known to occasionally eat the wildebeest.

NewUser: ? ?

[]: The wildebeest is larger. It is stronger. It lives longer and is more experienced and wiser. Even its speed is impressive to the point that the cheetah's slight edge is hardly relevant.

NewUser: Yo are relly fuckin rubbing it in now. I'm the fucking cheetah and he;s the wildbeest I get it

[]: So how does the cheetah ever win?

[]: It must eat, after all.

[]: Thus, even while starving, the cheetah must win.

[]: And it does so. Oh yes, the cheetah wins.

[]: The cheetah wins by being more brutal

[]: The cheetah wins by being more desperate

[]: The cheetah wins by being more hungry

[]: The predators are the creatures which become stronger when they are hungry. The prey are the ones that become weaker. We must be predators, it is the necessary way of life for one on your path.

[]: One of my children.

NewUser: I don

NewUser: I don't know wat your talking about

[]: Look at the wildebeest. He is powerful. Confident. Complacent. Placated. Comfortable, even.

[]: You will kill and eat him. That is decided.

NewUser: Im not a fucking predator

NewUser: For gods sake

NewUser: What dos that evem mean?

NewUser: Lord knos it sounds bad.

[]: Let me help you understand, Dire.

[]: A wise man once said.

[]: We get by with a little help from our friends.

[]: You will get there on your own, I am sure of it.

[]: Until then, borrow your way. You will pay me back, after all.

[]: And always remember.

[]: I love you, Dire. See you very soon.

[]: 3

USER /ER4/ STOPPED MESSAGING USER "NewUser"

Dylan felt a cold tingle at the base of his skull. It was like a phantom hand gripped him by the top of the spine and shook him sober. Something started to come over him. A baser instinct filled his mind. A primal response from the ancient lizard part of the human brain. Something coded so deep into human DNA that it was usually buried under the mountain of the superego, and could never arise. That cold electricity dug it up.

Someone's quirk? A hidden ability? Who cared. It felt fantastic.

The busted door to the train shuddered to a close. Jacob stared more intensely at the armoured figure who sat relaxed in a chair. The one that had been fraternizing with his would-be assassin. The train clunked into motion, nearing the mouth of the dim tunnels of the underground.

"Keeping shtum, eh?" Jacob asked. Redd responded not. "By the time this train comes into the next station," Jacob started, pulling out his phone and hovering over nine nine nine. "There will be a barricade of special operations police officers surrounding the platform and all exits to the vehicle. You can make this a whole lot easier on yourself by cooperating with me, villain."

"What are you paying attention to me for?" Redd said, looking up. "I'm just the invigilator."

"Is that what this is? A test? Because it looks like your student here is quite stuck on the question of how he's going to beat me while out cold. Give it up, this is a sealed container, get it? No way off for me or you or him. You're nicked."

"He looks fine to me. You might want to keep your eyes on the ball, Bulldog," Redd seethed. They spat the words like they hated the fact that they even came off their tongue. Jacob turned his nose up.

Then, he felt the aura again. From the start of the fight. It had faded over time, but now it was back with a vengeance. That malefic fog of bloodlust filled the car to bursting. The sensation was like being buried in hot, wet washcloths, and then being pressed down by a hungry tiger. A strange analogy, but it came rather close to describing the indescribable feeling of true murderous energy. Jacob whipped around, the phone flying from his hand. He had almost let his guard down.

Dylan was back up. By some miracle, he got back up. Jacob audibly gasped. The boy ditched the ripped up hoodie, going shirtless. He was covered in drooling maws and had a demonic look on his face. The wrinkling of his extreme expression wrung the humanity from his face like water from a sponge. The bend in his leg, the hole through which his bone stuck out, they all just became more surface area for him to fill with teeth.

"How is that possible? The last person I used a full power piledriver on didn't walk for a week, and he was tougher than this runt," Jacob wondered frantically. He put his good arm up, entering an impromptu facsimile of his wrestling pose. It mattered not how many times the kid got back up if he was just as easy to put back down. "Pup, quit tossing your toys out of the pram… Will you? The longer you do this, the worse the situation gets for you…"

The boy stood tall, his skin black with the foul saliva of his maws. In his mind, he had not a human thought left. He had surrendered to his biology. His body operated on latent predatory instinct. Whatever this mysterious admirer of his had done, it worked.

"This kind of shit… Usually happens for the heroes, doesn't it?" He grinned. Jacob looked confused.

"What are you talking about?" Jacob cried.

"Something at the last moment… A shiny deus ex machina… Always so unfair… How about just this once… It's unfair for you heroes instead? How does that sound? Good, fucker?" He laughed giddily.

Jacob backed up a few steps. The boy advanced just as far.

"Now then, pro hero. Answer a question for me."

"What is it?" Jacob cried.

"What's my name?"

The train went into the tunnel. The lights went out. All was bathed in total blackness. The Bulldog couldn't see an inch in front of his face. He felt a hot breath on the back of his neck. Then, silence.

-XXX-

...

"Gosh! The National Hero Service HQ! Let me tell you mister Avery, I'm so glad to finally be here."

"Calm down, young buck. Come here, you gotta meet your support technician. Here, this is Laddie Pembroke, I hope you two will get along. Have a good one, mister 'Bulldog'."

"Oh, um… Hello there…"

"You're Laddie, right? It's a joy to meet you! The name's Jacob Churchill. I love your ears! These machines look bally complicated, don't they? Golly, it's rather chilly in here isnt it? Your face is looking rather red! Are you alright, chap?"

"It… It'll be a pleasure working with you…"

Laddie… A pleasure it was…

...

-XXX-

At around half past three in the AM on Thursday, a tube train on the London Underground Victoria line arrived at Green Park. The prior station was Oxford Circus, and the next would be Victoria. However, the only two occupants of the train would be getting off here.

Waiting on the platform was a formal-looking gent. Skinny, and smartly dressed in a velvet suit and top hat. His pallid, knobbled, hairless hands were holding a leather suitcase and an ivory walking cane respectively.

He was five feet and eleven inches tall. His eyes were coal colour. His mouth couldn't open. He didn't have a heartbeat, and he breathed through his skin. His weight was about thirteen tons. Under his snakeskin shoes, there were cracked depressions in the concrete.

"Dylan, what did I tell you?" He thrummed out of his nose. "Congratulations, you passed! Welcome to the Union. Your rank is trustee, you are assigned to the team of delegate Redd, who possesses three executives and about twenty other trustees under them."

Dylan wasn't listening. He hadn't been himself, recently. It felt like he had just awoken from an unpleasant nap. He was groggy in the extreme, barely able to stand on his own. Furthermore, he was wet with blood from head to toe. His whole body was crimson, and he trailed buckets of the stuff wherever he went. He was sure it wasn't all his. He didn't have this much blood in his body. On top of that, he was uninjured.

"Redd… who… who's this guy?" The viscera soaked boy slurred, almost toppling over. Why didn't he remember any of the last couple of minutes?

"That Man. Our kind sponsor. You know, the leader of the whole operation. He doesn't usually greet the recruits like this. Go say hello, but be polite about it."

"H-Hi…" Dylan said obediently.

"Come here, young one," That Man bubbled. Dylan staggered over and fell to his knees before That Man. That Man combed his hand through the boy's hair longingly. His hand was about as heavy as a small car on its own. Dylan could feel the weight of the dense flesh. He submitted totally. "You are… significant to me… Do you know why?"

"No fucking clue…" Dylan mumbled. That Man pinched his cheek playfully and took his chin in his hand.

"It's a ritual significance, child. You will be the last of my children. It has been decided. Once you have properly flowered, our war will begin. You must meet me again, boy. The next step in your germination is arriving. The time when you pay me back. When the weekend comes, you will receive the location. Be there, or be square!"

With that final word, full of lustful anticipation, That Man departed. His every step shook the earth ever so slightly in about a two-meter radius. Dylan and Redd were left alone. The communist stood by Dylan, who was still kneeling down. They put their hand on his shoulder.

"We gotta clean you up. Where's the public restroom? We can use the disabled, it's more spacious, and it's unisex. Then we'll head to home base. It's a long walk, I hope you aren't too tired. You'll be meeting the rest of the team there-"

"What's your name?" Dylan asked, his neck crumpled weakly. His head hung back with his face looking at the ceiling. His expression was blank. His voice was pleading. Redd looked hesitant. "Your real name… please?"

"...Fine," Redd relented. "My name is Radovich Hoenklowen. It's good to finally meet you, Dire."

TO BE CONTINUED

A big one for you! To celebrate getting my first scrollbar on a fanfiction. Also featured: Death.

In other news, one of the fine fellows on the Regency Academy discord server had a bit of tequila and decided it would be a good idea to make a Regency Academy wiki! It's quite rudimentary as of now. Some official art is used for the characters (Ginger and Lorelai both have drawings which you can check out on the discord aswell!), whereas most of the other assets are placeholders. Also, its mainly just pages for the student OCs we have so far. The hope is to build it up going forward, and we'd love it if you joined! If you'd like to come down and help fill the info out about your favourite minor character or story arc, be my guest! The link is in my bio! remove the spaces!

With that out of the way, please leave a review telling me what you thought of the story, PM me if theres anything you want to talk to me about or join us all on the discord server! And as always, thanks for reading!