Flick could barely recognise anything, no feature or detail on Chip’s broken face, the pieces of his fractured helmet still covering what was left of it. He expected there would at least be a pair of open eyes for him to solemnly close granting the boy some ephemeral peace, instead all that remained in front of Flick was this inhuman mess.

  If Chip’s blue eyes were behind the faded chunks of plastic and bone, he certainly couldn’t see them. Flick had seen death, more times than he wanted to by now, but this was the first time he could see the aftermath so close to him, it was also the first time it lingered so plainly. He was used to cutting down soldiers and moving on, not staying in any room for longer than he had to. And yet, with Chip’s lifeless body in front of him, everything was quiet and still. Everything lingered, echoed, stayed.

  Flick looked at the body again, hoping it changed shape to something more appealing.

  It didn’t. It was still wet and disfigured. He found it strange, every body he had seen before blended into the scenery around it as if it shared the same properties as the wall or floor, but Chip was still Chip.

  As he looked around the room at the other corpses he found that they too suddenly stopped being ornaments.

  He wondered what colours their eyes would have been.

  Tearing the end of a tattered drape he covered what remained of Chip’s face. It would do.

  “Flick!” a shrill voice sounded from behind him, they couldn’t tell who the body beside him belonged to.

  He turned around to see two SMILE members, probably on the younger side of the group based on their tiny figures. Flick didn’t recognise them.

  They continued, “Any idea where Big Scratch went? We’re all lost”

  “Uh…” He trailed off, “They went that way? I think? There must be some stairs or-“

  “Probably! We found ten different stairs already!” The small child threw their arms up, “Thanks anyway though!”

  The two ran down the hallway he pointed down, then darted into a door frantically. Flick eventually decided to follow suite, picking up Chip’s sword in hoping it would become useful further into the building. He jogged to the very end until he saw the giant corpse of the man who were chasing Scratch and Pop a while ago, followed by the open elevator shaft coughing up smoke and fire.

  It wasn’t hard to believe the two of them did something here, probably something very stupid by what Flick knew of Scratch. He pictured in his head exactly what Scratch would’ve done, envisioning a pirate like escapade of slashing away the taught rigging of a boat to soar skywards and chuckled to himself. However, there was also the possibility that the two of them were in the elevator as it was sabotaged, most likely by one of Isaac’s goons. Flick desperately hoped it was the former.

  Despite his passing interest in the fate of the elevator, he became aware that it might’ve been his only way of getting to where Scratch and Pop were, and now it was in shambles some several stories down. He walked back and combed the various garish doorways for any promising leads.

  He peered into the door, left wide open by the two SMILE children, and found it only had a set of stairs that led up by a floor or two. Another stairwell only went up by three, but had several other doors affixed on each level, meaning one could possibly lead to yet another stairwell like some deranged Russian doll. Finally, Flick found a set of stairs that looked as though they climbed to roughly where the elevator would reach and started up them.

  The only door he found as he climbed was at the very top, branded in a thick gold seal that read,

  “APEX”

  For a moment a lump formed in his throat as his eyes skimmed past the word, he didn’t know what it meant or what it symbolised but the feeling that rose up from his core told him that it meant something sinister. Flick became abruptly aware of his isolation in the stairwell too, entirely void of any support in a place where he could, very easily, be overrun with ruthless soldiers.

  Regardless, he swallowed the pit forming at the back of his mouth and pressed through, feeling the weight of Chip’s blade on his back adding to his own like a comforting shield.

  The moment the door opened a sound of grinding metal echoed around him. he peered around the corner and couldn’t see anyone in particular, but still the noise remained. Suddenly, the grinding stopped and transformed into periodic bleats of steel slamming into steel with faint, but not unnoticeable, whirrs and clicks in between.

  Flick recognised it almost immediately and any impulse of fear vanished, replaced by adrenaline along with urgency. He skidded around corners, scuffing the carpets with each laboured step, scouring the myriad of halls to find where he hoped the kids were. The noise grew louder and louder until it drowned out Flick’s footsteps, surrounding him before he found an open door that churned the sound from its entrance clearly and unfiltered.

  There was a metal set of stairs inside, being illuminated in brief static moments by flashing lights and sparks that flew from the room at the top. There, with his fusion cutter shakily held in his hand, Flick saw Scratch.

  The boy, covered in blood and sweat, was being overshadowed by a suit clad man holding a shining thin blade. He was screaming, grabbing at his shoulder where a small hook had made its home, a cable stretched out from it to the hilt of his enemy’s sword. It shrank with each passing second, the end of the man’s sword slowly reaching the inlaid hook to Scratch’s horror. Flick saw it all.

  His legs moved without thinking, igniting the fuel in his weapon and gaining momentum on the blood-soaked carpet’s damp fibre. As Scratch recoiled from another failed attempt at releasing himself, Flick slipped in between and brought his flame to Isaac’s chest.

  He didn’t notice Flick until the inky blackness of his helmet appeared in front of him like a dark mirror, only having the time to react the instant he eerily saw his own reflection lit by the ominous glow of a fusion cutter. As Isaac leapt backwards it scraped across his midsection fizzing away the fabric of his jacket until it smouldered.

  Isaac landed, wobbled, then bent over clutching at where the fire had touched him. Flick steadied his breath and slowly stood back towards Scratch, satisfied in breaking the two up for now and creating a small moment of peace.

  Small puddles of blood were scattered along the floor’s surface with new patches appearing every other second following wherever the boy swayed. His arm was metal, and where his body met the sword was bruised beyond human recognition. The sight of it made him feel sick.

  Flick noticed the detachable dagger on one of Scratch’s swords was hanging by its chain, the blade being held in his left hand and the cable attached to it clenched tightly between his teeth. He figured he’d been using it, using anything, to get extra leverage, by the sore marks at the sides of his mouth that bled and shone dark pink. It looked, if anything, like Scratch had been using the dagger and chain as a whip with the anchor point being his muzzle, that now was carved into an eternal scowl.

  The man he was fighting however, looked practically unharmed. A few nicks on his face, Flick thought he saw some tiny gashes on his black suit too or maybe an open wound, but it wasn’t nearly on the same level as Scratch. Even more baffling than that, the section of his chest where Flick’s cutter had crossed over seemed perfectly fine, spare for a few trailing wisps of smoke and cloth debris.

  “Mother FUCKER!” Isaac yelled, letting small puffs of ash fall from his mouth as he did so, “Another one?! Really?! Can’t you people wait until I’m at least done with one of you?!”

  Flick was dumbfounded, he was sure his blade connected properly even hearing the horrific squealing of melting flesh that he hated so much.

  The sight of Isaac standing there unharmed gave him chills, but Scratch seemed un-phased. He let the dagger in his hand droop, holding it by the edge of his finger before spinning it wildly and flinging it towards his adversary. It soared up overhead until the cable grew taught by Scratch’s bite, whipping down towards Isaac’s skull.

  It bounced away pathetically, blocked by the man’s own weapon with ease.

  “Would you stop for a second? I’m sick of being interrupted all the time today it’s a fucking shit show up here!”

  Scratch flicked the dagger back to his hand and tensed his arm to throw again, but noticing Isaac raising his arm towards him he hesitated.

  “Don’t you FUCKING dare!” his voice was inhumanely loud and baked in a hoarse, harsh venom.

  For some reason Scratch felt the overwhelming urge to stop, a combination of trepidation and caution.

  “Thank you! Seriously it is not fair being ganged up on like this, especially since I’m not even trying here!” Isaac’s voice broke a little as he smiled with annoyance,

  “Look, kids” he eyed Flick, “I have to level things out a little bit, it’s only fair after all…”

  He pulled off his jacked and popped off a couple buttons from his creased shirt underneath, revealing his hairless chest with a small black hook in the centre.

  “Now,” he continued “your little friend there is a pretty smart cookie, stopping the bleeding like that is brave for someone out of their depth. But this is when the difference between us is gonna be a bit more… Apparent.”

  Flick sensed the oncoming danger, finally understanding that this had to have been Isaac, and shifted his leg steadily still naively hoping he could salvage the situation through conversation.

  He started, shakily, “H-hey wait a second man can’t we-“

  Isaac brought Caladbolg up in front of him and slowly pushed the strange, hooked pommel towards the link on his chest then, like pulling the ripcord on a motor, Isaac yanked the sword away from him extending the hidden cable he used before to fuse weapons together. When his arm went as far out as it could go he released Caladbolg, leaving it reeling rapidly towards his body in a single, straight, glimmering instant.

  A crunching sound, of bone or metal or maybe something in-between, rang in both Scratch’s and Flick’s ear. It’s noise so grating that the two of them could feel it buzzing behind their eyes too, shaking the rims of their heads. They felt the urge to cover any open surfaces on their body, to stop the noise intruding any further, but they dared not look away from the man in front of them. The dark coloured skin of Isaac’s aged body receded, being pulled like loose cloth towards the centre of his chest revealing thick, smooth, gold instead of wiry veins and thew. Any bumps in his arms that were once formed by musculature now shifted into tight rigid corners and turns, polygonal, yet they still managed to breath with pulse as though they were live flesh.

  The process continued, noise and all, until it started to consume his entire being leaving only a few sparse patches of black skin in seemingly random places. Flick’s eyes glossed over Isaac’s new form, taking note of any ‘normal’ looking patches of body assuming they were weaknesses by design for him to exploit in the future.

  However, he stopped once he saw Isaac look down at the patches himself, seemingly taking count too.

  He rolled his shoulders, the new metal body was slightly bigger than his normal size and joints needed to be tested just in case.

  “Scratch…” Flick whispered,

  Scratch, still holding a cable in his mouth, glanced over trying to keep Isaac within his eyeline. Flick tossed Chip’s sword from his back to the small boy, silently admitting that it’d be more of use to him. He hesitated, understanding that being given his sword meant the worst had happened to Chip, but eventually slotted it into Caliburn watching it automatically reunite with the half stolen from the giant’s chest.

  The boy nodded to Flick, then gestured for him to circle right. Presuming this was a precaution for whatever Isaac was about to do, he moved as Scratch told, pacing to the right in the hopes of circling their enemy. Scratch went the opposite way, staring down Isaac, if the Gilded man in front of him could even be called by a human name any more.

  Without hesitation Isaac froze, the whites of his eyes flashing gold before his entire being vanished in an instant reappearing a breaths distance in front of Scratch. His palm was outstretched and his fingers became sharp talons of spiked gold, swinging at the small body in front of them with every intention to tear him asunder.

  Scratch’s eyes widened, his legs kicking backwards barely fast enough to avoid his sharp grasp. Without thinking he swiped at Isaac’s body with Caliburn’s full strength, only for it to bounce off pathetically in retaliation.

  Isaac chuckled to himself before slamming the back of his hand cleanly into Scratch, his fist almost covering the entire width of his body.

  Scratch didn’t even notice the time it took for him to fly into the wall at the other end of the room, simply crumpling to the floor as the feeling of Isaac’s arm lingered sorely on his chest.

  Flick’s heart stopped, seeing the whole thing unfold himself. He had seen this sort of speed in the comics, where the great Isaac was somehow always behind his enemy every other panel, but he never thought that of all things was kept accurate to his real-life counterpart.

  Again, Isaac’s eyes glinted in metal light and his body seized up.

  Anticipating what was coming next, if only slightly, Flick dropped to his knee and swung wildly behind him hoping his enemy would magically materialise at his back. Luckily, Isaac did exactly that, appearing directly in the path of Flick’s fusion cutter causing his gold skin to glow slightly red.

  He flinched with the unfamiliar sensation of metal heating up in his body, throwing him off, but eventually swung to claw at Flick like he did Scratch.

  Flick rolled away from his crouched position, bumping the top of his head with on of Isaac’s golden fingers, but overall avoiding the brunt of the swipe. He stopped his momentum on the other side of his metal body and brought the cutter up against Isaac’s exposed flank, ready to concentrate its energy into Isaac for as long as he could.

  However the moment it was in position to bring swift punishment, Flick was met by the solid heel of Isaac jolting towards him.

  The blow collided with his neck, jerking his head forward before his whole body was sent to meet Scratch, who was still spitting up the blood that gathered on his tongue.

  “H…Hey…” Flick choked out, eventually.

  “…Hi”

  “Are you?...”

  “I’m fine, did yo-“ Scratch meant to say ‘did you find anything out?’ but didn’t have the energy to finish.

  Flick gathered what he was saying from instinct alone, “Yeah… I think”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mhm,” he grunted, rubbing his throat, “I think heat still works on him”

  “…Cool” Scratch responded,

  The mechanism of Caliburn whirred to life at his mind’s command, shifting the swords around on its hilt and reeling in the cable attached dagger back to its holster. Once it clicked in place a vein briefly inflated on his brow, and by reaction the blade began its secondary function of superheating itself. It glowed red hot, just like Flick had remembered it doing in the pillar’s vents.

  Scratch reluctantly settled on this as being enough heat for the time being, hoping it’d at least do something to the monster. At the same time, Flick picked up his fusion cutter from the floor and reignited it, heaving air past his slightly bruised airway to reopen it and calm himself.

  As the two of them readied themselves, Isaac’s eyes glossed over once more, content in using his speed as many times as he saw fit to take care of the two annoyances still standing.

  Again, Isaac appeared in front of Scratch and Flick, however this time accompanying him was a torrent of blackened liquid pooling from his mouth.

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  It seemed adjacent to blood, but looked and felt as though it was at least twice as dense, as if it was coagulated or clotted. The look on Isaac’s face, even behind the metal exterior, was one of shock yet not one of surprise.

  Whatever this was, it had happened before just not nearly as fast as Isaac expected.

  Caliburn’s burning tip immediately dug itself into Isaac’s chest, only digging inby half an inch but still doing far more damage than it was doing before. He quickly pulled it back and prepared to slice at the same spot, simultaneously Flick pivoted the flame in his palm to sear into Isaac’s cheek holding it there steadily.

  Isaac reflexively batted at Flick, but missed as he ducked under his arm, slicing at the thigh as he passed.

  Seeing the futility in fighting someone as agile as Flick, he turned his attention towards Scratch. He intercepted the boy’s swing, ignoring the hot blade and grabbing the whole of Caliburn’s body. Then, pulling the entire weight of Scratch as if it were string, Isaac flung his small opponent into Flick.

  Seeing Scratch being inhumanely wielded as a fleshy baseball bat, Flick quickly switched his cutter off to not accidentally burn his friend and tensed his body to embrace the boy head on. The pressure was immense, winding Flick instantly, however he managed to catch Scratch as best he could without hurting him.

  He skidded backwards before tumbling over in a choking, coughing mess.

  When the two of them got back to their feet they noticed something was different about Isaac, he was walking steadily around them instead of vanishing like before.

  A trail of black ooze still stained the base of his chin and Flick figured, correctly, that he had pushed himself a little too far.

  “Well,” Isaac said, grumbling through his metal coated lungs, “Guess I can’t do that so much any more, you’re lucky its been a while for me.”

  Scratch cracked a smile wearily, “No excuse for being shit, loser!”

  Isaac laughed, then moved himself over an engine blade. It was lazily tossed aside in their previous scuffle, but now it seemed to garner specific attention from him as if it was like Caladbolg or Caliburn, despite being boring by comparison.

  Tiny golden tendrils melted away from his calf and snaked their way down to the weapon, hooking themselves into its flesh and carrying it daintily into his leg. It moved apart, pushing muscle around to make space for the blade before swallowing it whole, sending small ripples across the rest of his body.

  Apart from that nothing else changed in his appearance, he still looked like the same golden abomination. Flick and Scratch were too unnerved to stop whatever it was that just happened, but seeing the lack of difference it made to Isaac’s body, at least in appearance, put them at ease somewhat.

  Scratch flexed the mechanical sinew in his arm, spinning the blades on its hilt around and bending them beyond what a human elbow would allow, giving him a mantis like appendage poised to strike. Sick of taking his time, the boy pushed his legs to swiftly charge at Isaac, cocking his arm back like the hammer of a gun.

  A golden arm swung for him, blurring with the air that bent around its sheer speed, but Scratch dropped down to his back sliding along the floor and between the man’s legs.

  Isaac saw this and, without hesitating, slammed his heel behind him at where he assumed the boys head would be. The impact was enough to create a small crater in the floor revealing the concrete underneath. However, Scratch had managed to pop himself up using his spare hand as a springboard, barely escaping a crushing death. Landing carefully, he span around and shot his arm towards Isaac’s back.

  Scratch had failed to notice the left arm of the man tucked neatly by his ribs, pointing at him. Or, more aptly, Scratch didn’t feel like it deserved attention and simply continued his attack.

  From his left hand Isaac shaped it into a gun, index finger pointing rigidly behind him at the boy’s general location. A small hole opened up at the tip and a concentrated rush of air flooded out, compressed by the small entrance and forming itself into a spear tipped cone.

  It cracked the air and pushed into Scratch’s abdomen, like a pin the length of an entire arm it slipped past his skin’s defences easily and petered out the other side.

  The force of the gale swept him from his feet too, and Scratch suddenly found himself crumped next to Pop, aching and moaning weakly.

  Flick moved in next, he was planning to take advantage of Scratch attacking from behind as it was something the boy commonly did during sparring sessions, but quickly got caught off guard seeing him flung away by an invisible force. The moment the boy was dealt with Isaac brought his right hand out in front of him towards Flick, forcing air out of the crevice in his palm. It was more than enough to carry him away a couple feet, creating distance, but this wasn’t the golden man’s goal. Flick’s fusion cutter was already in front of him by the time the wind blew into it, and suddenly his entire field of vision was consumed by fire.

  Despite the wind dissipating the heat somewhat, the blowback was still enough to set small fires on the cuff of his jacket and cover his visor in soot. He hastily patted the places on his body that he felt the heat chewing through, then used the edge of his sleeve to wipe away the debris on his mask only to see Isaac sprinting at him.

  He leapt up, pushing his knee forward to cleave Flick’s head clean off its feeble hinges, but he scrambled quickly forward and got to his feet as Isaac passed over him.

  He saw the shoulder of the man twitch and anticipated a lumbering swing backwards. Flick bent backwards too, slipping the flame of his cutter past the arm, to Isaac’s dismay, as it passed. Again it faintly glowed red with heat and he flinched like he did the first time, but the hesitation lasted a fraction of what it was before.

  Within an instant he was readying a jab with his opened palm, intending to claw at whatever part his fingers made contact with.

  It shot forth yet Flick managed to react to it, if only barely. He slammed the solid part of his fusion cutter into Isaac’s attack, hoping to stop it as if it were of the same calibre as the swordsmen he’d fought before this. When he felt, almost immediately when his cutter made contact with his attack, that Isaac was simply too strong for Flick’s arms to stop them, he instead pushed Isaac’s hand away from him.

  He used the man’s momentum against him, steering Isaac’s arm away and indirectly dragging himself towards the golden chest of his opponent.

  Seeing his opportunity, Flick brought his fusion cutter back towards himself and pirouetted below his underarm dragging the inferno across Isaac’s torso. Facing Isaac’s back once more, Flick grabbed at the rigid chunk of gold on his opponents shoulder and clambered up its surface until his entire body was off the ground and latched to Melbourne’s.

  There, he stabbed the fusion cutters nozzle cleanly into the gap on his shoulder blade, watching the golden flesh around it rapidly twitch and morph under the unrelenting heat.

  Isaac yelled, for the first time in the fight so far. He clawed at his back until his fingers wrapped around the tiny body of Flick, slamming it off of him and onto the floor.

  A rush of adrenaline surged through Flick’s body, feeling the bones in his back and shoulder crack under the force of being dropped onto concrete so suddenly. He shot up the moment his body made contact, riding the wave of invincibility that came with the near death sensation, and without thinking put his whole weight into a punch.

  It collided with the part of Isaac’s body that still faintly pulsed red by sheer chance, not realising that if his fist had made contact with any other part of his body it would’ve almost certainly shattered his arm.

  Strangely though, when Flick’s punch made contact it felt soft, softer than even normal human skin felt like, he even felt as though his fist was sinking into Isaac’s body.

  Isaac, this time, didn’t yell. His eyes somehow grew bloodshot and a seething rage passed over him. Flick recognised it as the same adrenaline that shot through him earlier, the same feeling of being put at the risk of death.

  Before he could react, Isaac’s knee dug into Flick’s ribs, shattering two of them on impact. Then, Isaac stopped himself, pulling back to extend his full leg and kick twice more, each kick rising further up his torso and cracking the remaining bones that were still present.

  The sensation of feeling his own body shift and break sent small tremors throughout Flick’s body, leaving him paralysed as Isaac brought his leg back down. Flick’s whole stance wobbled, trying desperately to keep himself upright as his chest buckled under his weight. The adrenaline began to fade, and the pain set in properly.

  But something did happen, something Flick noticed.

  Isaac’s skin felt soft.

  In that one instance where he naively punched Isaac the metal on his body stopped resisting, the part that was heated up by his fusion cutter. Flick looked at Scratch to see if he spotted what happened too, and sure enough he was staring back at him dumbfounded.

  Isaac wound his leg back far behind his body, every golden vain that wasn’t covered by tattered cloth tensing up ready to let it spring back into Flicks torso. However, in the last moment Flick swivelled the device in his hand until he had a firm reverse grip on it, scraping the scrolling wheel on its back end until it was maxed out. He pointed it carefully, then unleashed a scorching torrent of heat.

  Scratch recognised it immediately as the same technique Flick used as a wild card to catch him off guard, the one he used to spin about wildly until he coincidentally managed to punch him. But this time was different, it was still the same untameable fire as before however it was directed. Flick’s cutter was angled at a point that meant the uncontrollable force spilling out of it would simply carry him away, without any rotation.

  It roared ferociously as Flick struggled to keep its orientation directed, gliding along the floor at breakneck speed until the fuel in his fusion cutter ran out. He looked up and, without hesitation, reached into his pocket for the last fuel rod in his supply. Popping open the chamber and slotting it in, he steadily walked towards Isaac reigniting his blade.

  As he did so, Scratch carefully unravelled the cable in his engine blade, stretching the dagger attached chain out and wrapping it around the gargantuan blade of Chip’s sword. he bundled it as tightly as he could making sure the dagger end was positioned at the tip, flexing the sinew in his arm to move the sword up and down to get extra leverage. Once he was satisfied he propped himself on one knee and began heating the dagger, patiently waiting for it to glow red hot.

  Flick’s chest ached, he could feel it swelling around his lung like a balloon suffocating one side of him. He found it hard to walk straight, but he had to. Flick struggled not to look in Scratch’s direction, he could only guess what his small friend was planning and was desperate to find out in the hopes that Flick could assist in some way.

  Isaac’s eyes were unrelenting though, if Flick glanced for even a second at his friend then the man would know they were planning something. A part of him wanted Isaac to know, that Scratch was the one to focus on and not himself.He didn’t like being the sole fascination of this golden behemoth, the stories terrified him even know.

  But he had to play his part, he had to be the hero. At least for now.

  Isaac shifted in place, watching Flick’s movements as he inched closer to another engine blade lying carelessly on the floor.

  One, two, three, four

  Flick counted in his head, each second for every step he took to keep him focused.

  Five six se-

  Before his foot touched ground properly Isaac lunged forward, his hand miraculously changing shape and extending beyond its human limits. It whirred mechanically as it pushed itself out towards Flick in piston like motion, the engine blade near him being suddenly gone.

  Flick twisted his body to the side, breaking into a full sprint once Isaac’s claw was well out of reach. As he did so Flick scraped the flame of his cutter along the inside of his golden, outstretched, arm hoping it would get Isaac to recoil in some way. It didn’t, having enough of the burns across his metal body to shake the pain off.

  Isaac shrank his arm back into place attempting to scrape Flick on its return.

  He noticed the golden fabric on his arm loosen and immediately caught wind that Isaac’s hand was quickly approaching behind him. while it was still stretched out Flick swung underneath it, now running on the outside of his arm. He watched carefully as he ran until he noticed a particularly chunky piece of gold sticking out of Isaac’s anatomy.

  As the hand rapidly shrank back into place Flick latched onto it, wrapping his fingers around the chunk of metal as a grip, and rode it back to Isaac s body.

  As Isaac’s arm slotted finely back into place Flick soared straight past him, the momentum pulling him far beyond his target. However, just as Flick was about to completely overshoot Isaac, he stuck his hand out and grabbed a crevice in the golden man’s shoulder.

  Using it as a pivot Flick’s body suddenly changed course, swinging directly towards Isaac’s chest, fusion cutter poised to stab him squarely in his spine.

  Isaac noticed this, grinning as he watched the man fly onto his back, and immediately tensed his body to grab him the instant Flick stopped moving. However, a red blur slinking just below his eyeline caught his attention more.

  Scratch, Caliburn still firmly embedded in his ragged arm, slashed at Isaac’s abdomen with the hot tip of his blade. The incision wasn’t much more than a small wound, only barely bleeding black ooze, but just as the blade left his body Scratch pulled his arm back ready to push the whole sword into his chest.

  The slight hesitation Isaac had when seeing Scratch appear out of nowhere was enough for Flick to land on his gilded back. Bringing his fusion cutter far above his head, he slammed it into the middle of Isaac’s body, entirely suffocating the flame inside his gold flesh.

  At the same time, Scratch dug the superheated tip of Caliburn into Isaac’s chest too, its surface slowly inching further and further inside. As the blade made its way into Isaac’s body the heat from Flick’s fusion cutter softened the gold bit by bit, making it progressively easier for Caliburn to sink its way through.

  Isaac’s eyes widened, underestimating the ingenuity of two people so clearly lower than him. He could feel Scratch’s blade slowly pierce him at a faster rate as the fusion cutters heat returned his body back to human levels of toughness.

  He sharpened his fingers into a claw formation once more, slamming hard into Scratch in an attempt to swat him away. Caliburn hissed under Scratch’s skin and a spare sword still attached to its hilt span itself to prevent Isaac’s hand from moving any closer, its mechanism wobbling under the pressure of the golden hand’s strength.

  Isaac kept putting the pressure on Scratch, hoping he’d give up eventually, and at the same time flooded his back with wind expecting Flick to fly away. Somehow though Flick stayed still.

  He pushed his entire weight onto his fusion cutter, feeling the steam and wind brush past him with whistling fury, screaming at him to get away from its master.

  The wind pushed into his body, seeped its way into the folds of his jacket, his pants, the laces on his shoes all to pull him off. It was… Familiar, like the steam pressure from ice cutting. Flick kept pushing, the wind stealing parts of his breath. He screamed a guttural war cry to force air out of his lungs.

  The pressure on Caliburn was causing the steel on its defending blade to bend slightly, it rang through Scratch’s body as if it were his bones buckling instead. Being too focused on pushing the dagger further into Isaac’s body he failed to recognise the man’s second arm careening towards him.

  Just as he thought the golden tendrils of Isaac would finally tear him in two, the momentum of his claw suddenly stopped.

  Poppy, her engine blade snapped at the hilt and its blade still firmly embedded in her stomach, pushed her handle into Isaac’s palm as hard as she could. The steam propulsion on her blades hilt pillowing around her, giving her thrust the extra pushing force it needed to stop Isaac’s arm completely.

  Even still the strength of Isaac was progressively getting the better of her, she pushed her body to its limits to keep it at bay for just a second more.

  Scratch kept pushing deeper into Isaac’s chest, trying as best as he could to ignore the searing pain in his arm. He could feel it, any moment now it’d all be over, he just needed to keep pushing. Blood pooled from Caliburn’s edge, from where it joined his body, it started gathered underneath his tongue and in between his teeth too. His body burned, his body raged against him.

  Suddenly he felt it, the dagger on Caliburn’s tip sank quickly into Isaac’s body as if it were as easy as normal flesh. The moment he felt his body jolt forward he tensed every muscle in his arm, flaring Caliburn’s machinery into a whirring collection of shifting metal. He felt a guttural, painful mix of adrenaline and anger in his body, and parsed his lips to scream through his teeth.

  “FUCK YOU”

  Chip’s sword, still wrapped in the dagger chained cable, screeched to life. An ear bursting shock-wave of air echoed throughout the room, static electricity dancing across the surface of Isaac’s skin. In an instant the blade on Chip’s weapon exploded outwards, propelled by a flash of white energy that distorted the light around it.

  The blade immediately shot into Isaac’s chest, flying through it entirely like a harpoon until it peaked out the other side where Flick was still crouched over his cutter.

  Feeling the flesh bulge underneath him Flick pulled back anticipating that something was coming. The sword broke though and scraped by the cheek of his helmet just fast enough for him to grab the cable attached to it, stopping all of its momentum and swinging the metal rope around Isaac’s neck.

  He rolled off his back, still gripping the red hot cable and dragging it behind him. Simultaneously Scratch and Pop broke away from Isaac running to the far corners of his office, Scratch towing his end of the cable with him.

  The moment Flick had reached a point far enough away from Isaac he yanked on the cable as hard as he could, as did Scratch pulling his metal arm far behind him and watching the cable tighten grimly.

  It snaked its way around Isaac’s neck, coiling around its golden flesh as its cable flashed red with heat. He choked, as his neck grew more supple from the heat the wire tightened further until only faint gargles could escape.

  Flick pulled harder.

  Isaac slowly rose his hands to claw at the cable, his sharpened fingers slowly slicing through the rope.

  Scratch pulled harder.

  Isaac could feel the light closing around his eyes and cut with even more fervour, desperately grating his hands on the metal wrapped around him.

  Just as Flick and Scratch thought the fight was over, a thread of steel in the cable snapped and suddenly the pressure puling at it became too much. It tore in two leaving Flick and Scratch both collapsing to the floor, and Isaac gasping for air.

  They stood, all four of them exhausted.

  Isaac rubbed the surface of his throat, his breathing gravelled and hurt.

  “Okay…” he finally said, “That was close. You’re... Good… Better than I thought.”

  He shook himself loose, grimacing at the hole in his chest. He waved his hand over its open wound and progressively a wave of gold skin covered it completely. The injury was gone but its effect still lingered, he was in pain. Finally, he was in pain.

  “I can keep going for a while…” Isaac continued, “If you can keep up you might actually kill me. If you can keep up”

  Flick, Scratch and Poppy looked at each other, tired and weary from the fight. They wanted to leave, none of them had the strength to continue for much longer. However, they almost got him, if they can get this far in the state they’re in… Maybe they can actually do it?

  The three of them walked steadily to the centre of the room, opposite Isaac who began readjusting his stance back to its imposing, overbearing nature. A silent agreement for the fight to continue.

  “Good…” Isaac yelled, widening his arms and embracing the three that gave him so much entertainment from afar.

  “ILL SHOW YOU WHAT IT MEANS TO BE GOD OF THIS PLACE!”

  Just then, the instant his arms reached the extent of their wingspan, the glass surrounding the room shattered. Every surface had a fine line cut through it as if a knife cleanly dissected it in half. Then, in the next second everything above their heads vanished, the ceiling being decimated in a single wave of power.

  There a single, small framed figure adorning a jackal mask formed from gnarled wood, stood on the air outside the building. Hands firmly resting inside the pockets of a black trench coat, sleeves rolled up by the forearms to reveal pale skin.

  “Isaac I presume?” the voice in the sky spoke.

  Flick couldn’t believe what he was seeing, it looked so familiar yet he couldn’t bring himself to think it was actually true. The black tattered jacket, the voice.

  “Sam?”