Chapter 13

Set The Fire

While Dana and Kyne were on their way to their next enemy, a battle to the death was taking place elsewhere in the city. One of the Bio-Gladiators, Blaze Master, was tracking down one of his enemies in the hopes of scoring a victory. So far he hadn’t encountered any of the other fighters, but thanks to the phone he and the others had been given, he knew that battles were taking place all around the city. Three other Bio-Gladiators had already been killed, after all.

When it came to Blaze Master, he looked like a normal person for the most part. He was a boy in his late teens with short, spiky black hair and yellow eyes. His attire was made of loose street clothes, which consisted of a black hoodie without sleeves that had flames on them and loose cargo pants. If there was anything unusual about him that set him apart from other people, it would be the large burns that covered his entire forearms. He knew that this would draw unwanted attention, so he had taken precautions by covering his burns with long gloves.

As his name suggested, Blaze Master’s ability was using fire. He could shoot flames out of his hands to burn his enemies into ash. However, he needed to be careful when using his ability, as the flames could devour him as well, which was shown by the burns on his arms.

Blaze Master had suffered the burns a long time ago, when he had first been given his ability. From that point on, he had learned to be careful with his flames and had quickly become one of the audience’s favorite Bio-Gladiators. In fact, he was so popular that he was ranked as one of the most likely candidates to win.

Right now, he was pursuing another Bio-Gladiator by the name of Fast Gale. This Bio-Gladiator’s specialty was speed, as his body had been modified to let him run faster than a race car. While this made him a difficult opponent to most people, Blaze Master was far above most people. With clever use of his flames that he had learned from years of combat experience, he hadn’t just driven the speedy fighter away, but had manages to significantly harm him.

While Fast Gale had managed to run away, it wasn’t going to mean much in the end. Thanks to the tracking chips that were in every Bio-Gladiator, Blaze Master was easily able to follow behind his prey by checking the tracking device on his phone. It was only a matter of time until he caught Fast Gale and put an end to him.

The pyromaniac checked his tracking device and saw that there was another Bio-Gladiator just up ahead, which was most likely Fast Gale. Blaze Master grinned as his victory seemed to be completely ensured.

The place the wounded Bio-Gladiator was hiding was a parking lot. While the tracking device showed the area where a Bio-Gladiator could be found, it only showed the general area. In the end, you would still need to find your target with your own eyes in order to get their exact location. This was done so that the mutated warriors that specialized in stealth wouldn’t be put on a disadvantage.

However, this didn’t matter to Blaze Master. He was ready to burn the whole city to the ground, if it meant he would win.

With careful and silent steps the pyromaniac walked around the empty vehicles, always making sure to look behind and under all the cars he passed. So far, there was no sign of anybody else in the whole area, but a quick glance at the tracking device revealed that to be far from the truth.

Blaze Master kept looking for his opponent for some time, until he finally spotted someone hiding behind one of the cars. Even though he could only see the back of their head, he immediately recognized the person as Fast Gale. The pyromaniac grinned as he sneaked closer to his target, like a predator hunting its prey. It didn’t take long until he reached the other side of the car Fast Gale was hiding behind.

With his opponent right within his reach, Blaze Master prepared himself for the strike. In one quick movement, he grabbed his opponent by the hair and pulled him on top of the hood of the car, where he would then proceed to turn Fast Gale into ash.

However, things didn’t go as he had planned. Instead of pulling a whole body out of hiding, the only thing Blaze Master managed to get was a decapitated head.

Shock ran through the pyromaniac’s body, as he tried to make sense of what had happened. This wasn’t his doing at all. While he had wounded Fast Gale, it wasn’t to the point that something like this would happen. He inspected the head a bit and noticed two things. Fast Gale’s face was twisted into an expression of horror and the wound on his neck looked like it was made by claws of some type. Blaze Master also looked at the body and saw more evidence of a clawed opponent doing damage. Besides the burn that was on the side of Fast Gale’s body, there were claw marks all over his body. His stomach had also been ripped open, letting the internal organs fall out.

As he was wondering what had happened, Blaze Master suddenly heard snickering behind him. It was a familiar sound that caused him to let out small flames from his hand unconsciously due to how much it infuriated him. He turned around to see an all too familiar grin clearly mocking him.

It was none other than Miriam.

“About time you got here. I was starting to get tired of waiting,” the lady-beast taunted. “I have to say, though, you did make the wait worth it. I wasn’t expecting you to rip off Fast Gale’s head! The look on your face was freaking priceless!”

“Still the same annoying bastard, I see. And I see you’ve taken up bad habits,” Blaze Master said angrily. “You know I’m going to make you pay for taking MY prey, right?”

“Hey, don’t get angry at me! You should be angry at yourself for being so bad at this thing! Had you either been faster when chasing him or better at killing him in the first place, I wouldn’t have been forced to clean up your mess!” Miriam said while cackling. “The way I see it, you should be grateful to me, as I went ahead and took out one of your opponents for you! After all, the method doesn’t matter. As long as you’re the last one standing, you win!”

“That might be true, but there are just some things that you don’t do, unless you’re ready to get yourself killed. And taking that which belongs to someone else is one of them!” the pyromaniac said angrily before shooting flames from his hand that the lady-beast dodged, causing them to hit a car behind her and set it on fire instead. “But this actually works in my favor. I was hoping to be the one to finally kill you!”

“What a coincidence! I was hoping to get a chance to play with you, as well!” Miriam said with a laugh. “Although, are you sure you want to play with me? My record was way better than yours back in the arena.”

“That’s only because of two things! First, you only faced off against complete losers, because you were the owner’s personal favorite!” Blaze Master said while readying his flames. “And second, you never faced ME!”

“Ooooh, how scary! I’m just shaking here!” the lady-beast said. “You forgot one thing, though!”

“What’s that?”

“First, you gotta catch me!”

Before Blaze Master could even say anything, Miriam turned around and began to run away. It didn’t take long for the pyromaniac’s surprise to get replaced with fury, as he began running after the beast-lady.

The thing was that Blaze Master had for quite some time absolutely hated Miriam. Back when they were still in the facility, they would sometimes bump into each other, when they weren’t in actual matches and fighting was prohibited. During those times, the beast-lady would taunt and mock him to no end, infuriating Blaze Master to no end. To make matters worse, among the staff of the facility, there were a lot of people who considered Miriam to be the greatest of all Bio-Gladiators. For a prideful person like Blaze Master, this was unacceptable.

However, now he had been given a chance to set the record straight. To show everyone who truly was the best. He was not about to let this chance slip by.

The two Bio-Gladiators ran through twisting and narrow alleyways, with Blaze Master trying his best to hit his enemy with his flames. Unfortunately for him, Miriam was very nimble and fast on her feet, allowing her to easily avoid any flames that came at her. This only served to further anger Blaze Master, and to make matters worse for him, Miriam would throw whatever trash she found laying around at her pursuer. Not as an attack, but rather as a way to further anger him.

Just as she had expected, Miriam’s “attacks” had served to anger the pyromaniac greatly. Not only did the amount of attacks increase, but so did the intensity of his flames.

Eventually, Miriam made her way to what seemed to be a chemical factory. The lady-beast easily climbed its wall and entered the building through the roof with Blaze Master quickly following behind.

Once inside, the pyromaniac lost sight of his opponent. This was something he had somewhat expected. Had Miriam been the type to take him on face to face, she would have done so back at the parking lot. She had obviously been luring him to a trap.

This didn’t matter to Blaze Master. The way he saw it, it didn’t matter where he faced his opponents. They would all end up dying by his flames in the end.

The inside of the factory was rather noisy, since despite the factory requiring very few actual workers, there were still automated machines working around the clock. The chemicals that were being produced there also left quite the unpleasant smell.

All of this was ignored by Blaze Master. All that mattered was that he finally proved once and for all who was the greatest of the Bio-Gladiators.

With confident yet careful steps, the pyromaniac started exploring the factory in the hopes of finding Miriam. While he might have looked completely calm on the outside, on the inside he was nervous. On a closer look, this proved to be a very bad environment for Blaze Master. Not only were there far more places for Miriam to hide and launch a surprise attack, but the chemicals were also a source of great danger. There was a high chance that they were flammable, which made the pyromaniac’s abilities ill-suited for a fight there. He would have to be very careful not to accidentally blow himself up along with the whole factory.

“You know, you look all tough and cocky, but I know that you’re just about to piss your pants,” Miriam suddenly called out from the top of a large container. “It’s cool to have enhanced senses, you know? I can tell far more things about you than you could yourself!”

“How nice. Luckily I only need to know where you are,” Blaze Master said before shooting out flames at his opponent, who dodged them easily. “AND YOU JUST PROVIDED THAT TO ME YOURSELF, FOOL!”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, you still need to hit me!” the beast-lady mocked her attacker. “And with your aim, that’s not happening any time soon!”

“Get back here!”

The pyromaniac ran after his enemy, chasing her down the factory’s interior like a mad dog. All the while unknown to him was that he was going straight to a trap.

Eventually, Blaze Master lost sight of Miriam and was forced to look for her yet again. His failure at killing her only served to fuel his rage that made him just more reckless. Without any care for subtlety, the pyromaniac began running through the factory like a mad dog from hell, driven by only his desire to see his enemy dead.

However, after going around for some time, Blaze Master began feeling strange. His head felt dizzy, he felt pain in his chest and there was an overall feeling of nausea. This sick feeling caused his steps to become weaker and he soon began to stagger. The pyromaniac was forced to grab hold of a guard railing in the hopes of not falling as he vomited. Unfortunately for him, he was now feeling so weak that he wasn’t able to stop himself from falling down, hitting the floor below painfully.

As Blaze Master was struggling to get up, wondering what it was that had done this to him, he heard a strange noise nearby. It sounded like a balloon having its air let out, except much larger. The pyromaniac looked around and soon found the source of the noise, a grotesque figure with a hunchback, pinned to a wall with several metal poles going through its body.

It didn’t take long for Blaze Master to recognize the dead creature. It was Gasback, one of the 16 Bio-Gladiators. Its ability was to release poisonous gas from its back to kill its enemies. However, now that it was dead, there was nothing stopping it from releasing the gas stored in its body, turning the factory into a gas chamber.

It was then that it all dawned on Blaze Master. This had all bee a trap from the start. Miriam killing Fast Gale and coming here. This had all been done as a means to kill him. With Gasback dead, there was no signal coming from his tracking chip, meaning any nearby Bio-Gladiator wouldn’t know about this deadly trap at all until it was too late. Miriam had then used the pyromaniac’s hotheaded personality in order to get him to chase her to this place, sealing his fate.

“I guess it’s finally starting to come clear to you that you’ve been played,” Miriam’s mocking voice came from above. “You know, that guy never smelled all that great to begin with, but now that he’s dead he really stinks!”

“How are you still alive?” Blaze Master asked as he was struggling to stay conscious. “I’m sure you’ve been exposed to his gas far more than I have, yet you’re not affected.”

“That’s simple. It’s all thanks to my special ability,” the lady-beast answered. “You see, I don’t just have enhanced senses and physical abilities like many of you would believe. My real trump card is ability to adapt. I became immune to Fart Boy’s poison long before I even came face to face with you. Breathing here is almost no different to me than breathing normal air, as long as I don’t mind the smell.”

“So adaptation is your real ability, huh?” the pyromaniac said as he coughed up blood. “Well, we’ll see just how far it will help you when I turn you into-”

“Just gonna stop you right there. Were thinking on burning me? Are you stupid?” Miriam asked like she was talking to a child. “Do you have any idea what will happen to the gas if you light a fire?”

All color seemed to drain from Blaze Master’s face as he realized his situation. This trap had essentially been made for him. Not only was he dying from the poison, but he wouldn’t be able to do so much as put up a fruitless struggle. No matter what he would do, his fate was sealed. And it most likely had been from the very beginning.

“I see that you get it now. Good to see you learn at least at some point, even if it’s not fast at all,” Miriam said with a grin. “Now, all that remains is what I should do with you? I could just leave you here, as the poison will do its job. But that is simply not my style. When I kill someone, I want to do it personally. I like to feel their life drain from their bodies with my own hands and see it all come to an end in their eyes. That’s the thrill I live for.”

Suddenly, Blaze Master began to chuckle lowly, which eventually turned into full-blown laughter. The lady-beast could only stare in confusion at what was happening.

“What’s so funny?” Miriam asked with a raised eyebrow. “You’re about to die here, you know!? Can’t you at least act appropriately!? Like show some dumb defiance or cry for mercy!? Your ruining my fun here!”

“Oh, I know that it’s over for me. I’m just laughing because I realized something,” the pyromaniac answered.

“And that would be?”

“Even if this is the end for me, I get to do one thing I really wanted to do. And that is killing YOU!”

Before Miriam could do anything, Blaze Master shot flames from his hands, igniting the gas around him. The resulting explosion destroyed most of the factory, leaving it in ruins.

The destruction was so massive that if anyone were to witness it, they wouldn’t think for a second that someone inside could have survived. No human being could survive something like that.

However, a certain Bio-Gladiator was the furthest thing from a human being.

Even before the dust had fully settled, the rubble began to move as Miriam dug herself from underneath it. The lady-beast cracked her neck and other joints a bit as she began to walk away from the factory’s ruins. There were severe burns all over her body, but almost like time itself was being reversed, the injuries were visibly healing at an inhuman rate.

“Goddamn asshole… He didn’t need to go out of his way to ruin my fun,” Miriam mumbled to herself, like being blown up was nothing more than a minor annoyance for her. “Honestly, all that crap about being the greatest Bio-Gladiator doesn’t even matter to me. There’s someone I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on. And none of these losers can hold a candle to her.”