The ground trembled as Kai dashed forward, blood gauntlets glistening like wet obsidian under the flickering lights. His red eyes were glowing - no, burning. Not with reason or calculation, but with pure hunger. A savage urge to spill, to carve, to end.
Dominique cracked her knuckles, her dark aura thickening around her like a second skin. She didn’t flinch at the feral look in Kai’s eyes. If anything, it made her smirk.
"Bring it, freak," she spat. "Let’s see if you bleed just like the rest of us."
Kai didn’t respond.
He didn’t need to.
Blood surged in from the surrounding chaos - rivers of red snaking toward him from every corner of the arena. It wrapped around unnaturally. He didn’t just wear the blood; he beca it. The liquid armour hardened across his skin, layering over his limbs and torso, yet shifting with his every movent like a living being. It was thick, viscous, durable, and terrifying.
Each step he took cracked the ground beneath his feet as he pushed his Blood Pumping to the limit, sensing the power of his opponent. The blood-ford plating on his fists grew mid-swing, enhancing the impact as he closed the distance.
Crack!
Kai’s first punch t Dominique’s raised forearm. A shockwave of force rolled out from the collision, shattering the tiles beneath them. She didn’t budge. Her muscles had densified, dark veins crawling up her arms like roots.
"Hah! That all you got?!"
Kai grinned, wild and sharp. ’Nope. Just getting started.’
He spun, another punch enhanced by his shifting blood armour.
Wham!
It struck Dominique’s ribs with bone-rattling power, the fluid armour solidifying at the mont of impact.
She staggered back a step. Just one. But it was the first ti she had lost her footing in as long as she could rember, and enough to show her just how dangerous Kai was.
"You’re fast," she admitted, teeth clenched, eye narrowed. "But I’ve tanked worse from much more powerful mutants."
Kai didn’t react - he was already moving, fists flying in a blur, blood constructs forming and deconstructing around him mid-combat. Blades sprouted from his elbows, a spike from his knee. He wielded blood masterfully and seemingly effortlessly, as he continued his onslaught of attacks.
Swoosh!
With a flick of his wrist, a sharp whip of blood lashed out from Kai’s blood armour towards her throat as he closed in once again.
Slam!
Dominique’s reflexes were impressive, but her strength was even more so. Catching the blood whip in one hand, she yanked it hard, which pulled Kai over to her as if he weighed nothing.
"You’re not the only freak here!"
She slamd her shoulder into him like a freight train. Kai’s body cracked through a pillar, but his blood armour thickened at the last second, soaking the blow.
His body hit the ground, rolled once, then he flipped up, laughing.
A deep, guttural laugh. One that scared even himself.
’I could get used to this...’ he thought, breathing hard, blood steaming around him. ’This power, this speed, this rush...’
Kai felt invincible.
But sothing still held him back. A sliver of control. A thin chain wrapped around his sanity. He hadn’t completely lost it and gone berserk as he had previously against Nyx. At least not yet. His mind simply took a backseat to his bloodlust and instinct, which made it easier to push the limits of his ability.
anwhile, not far from them, lying barely conscious among the rubble, Zeke blinked through blood-caked lashes.
He’d expected to die. Honestly, after how Kai had torn into him, it had felt inevitable.
But then... she ca.
Dominique had left her battle. Her shot at Nadya. Her revenge. For him.
’Why?’ Zeke stared up at the ceiling as pain pulsed through his body. ’She always talked about Nadya... always said she’d kill her the next ti they t. So why the hell...?’
A shaky breath escaped his lips. Dominique’s snarl still echoed in his ears as she charged into Kai and launched him away from him.
’She saved ...’
His hand twitched, but he couldn’t move. He’d lost too much blood. But his heart clenched - not just from pain, but from emotion. No one had ever looked out for him like that before. Not even his real family.
He forced his head to turn, watching through blurred vision as Dominique and Kai clashed again and again like monsters of war.
’I can’t die yet... not before I see how this ends.’
anwhile, above them, Nadya blasted through the ruins of the club, palm-flas flaring at her sides. She darted between falling debris and twisted tal, her expression grim.
"Shit, this is worse than I thought," she muttered.
There were hundreds of corpses. So were torn apart by mutants gone berserk from TEMP Z. The stampede of escapees trampled so. Others were just... unlucky.
She touched down briefly beside a blocked passageway that seed to lead up to the Venom nightclub.
The chaos was spilling upwards - survivors from the arena trying to claw their way out, only to be ambushed or caught in the crossfire. Screams echoed in the distance. Mutants roared. Sirens wailed far off in the city.
’No wonder Kai’s struggling to stay sane,’ she thought, eyes scanning for a path out. ’All this blood... it’s probably driving him crazy.’
She clenched her jaw. Her instincts scread that the Association wouldn’t ignore this for much longer. With this level of destruction, they’d be crawling over the scene in minutes -the authorities, the military, and maybe worse...
They had to get out of there soon.
But still... her gaze drifted back down into the pit.
Back to Kai facing Dominique.
The blood storm, their brawl, and the madness.
Back in the arena, Dominique roared and leapt forward again, fists crackling with kinetic force. Kai welcod her charge.
The blood at his feet extended and burst, launching him forward, similar to Zeke’s and Nadya’s bursts of movent.
Their collision shook the arena.
Kai’s grin widened, his blood armour shifting around his body and recovering from the clash.
"Let’s see who breaks first," he snarled, voice thick with glee.
And so they fought - monsters in human skin - while the surrounding chaos continued...
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