From the Spectralhordes that spawned from the primordial ooze, to the Obsidian Behemoth that required all the clans to unite in order to defeat, KD had fought plenty of foes. Slain many beasts. Stared into certain annihilation and returned victorious with trophies to show. Only the toughest, the meanest, the most rugged of beings survived in the tumultuous world of the Void Realm.

As such, a visceral thrill usually ran from the points of their horns to the ends of their fingertips every time that they set foot into the city ruins. Danger could lurk at any corner, surprises at any turn. A dynamism flowed through those corridors of ancient stone and habitation. All it took was a sharp rattle of those old bones and something would surely fall out, ravenous for a fight. And KD would welcome it with a lion heart and two fists of steel. Usually.

The excitement was somewhat dampened with their shoulders absent of that familiar weight. Haru had chosen to walk on foot to march ahead. KD wondered whether she was still mad. The girl was a whistling kettle, tight-lipped with rage as she listened to KD justify their actions back at the bazaar.

“The Action Kid is in search of a kindred, an older brother. And he is willing to pay for our services,” KD had said.

“Mhm!” Action Kid showed Haru the plastic effigy of Action Man. “I’ll let you have him if you guide me through the city, to the military barracks.”

Surely, the prospect of a few more bouillons would have enticed Haru at least. And yet she inched closer and closer to going supernova, eradication in her piercing glare. KD swore that the edges of reality started to warp, that the heat death of the universe was at hand. Haru glanced at the boy. He was wide-eyed and hopeful, pleading with both hands on Action Man in prayer. She let out a weary sigh. Her wild blaze settled into icy reluctance, and she had been distant ever since leaving the Crumb Kingdom.

Action Kid was a head on a swivel. Every car, every building, every piece of trash that littered the street, he ogled and studied with the infinite fascination that only a child could possess. He barked at everything with a relentless vigour, particularly at rusty metal boxes. Vehicles, they were called. He pointed them out based on make, model and year—whatever that meant—from the overgrown grass and ponds. Apparently, humans used to cram themselves into those metal boxes to go from place to place. The thought of which was rather claustrophobic to KD. Nevertheless, they nodded along as the boy spoke.

The group began wading through water the farther they navigated into downtown. The streets were flooded. Only the roofs of vehicles peeked through the shimmering surface, which Haru used as stepping stones. KD and Action Kid followed. Lily pads floated in the tepid waters. The plants grew long and lush and in a greater number of colours. Orange, purple, pink, all swaying to a gentle blow that crests the water to a wrinkle. Such splendours to the senses were absent in the Void Realm. The only stimuli of worth were the obliteration of forms and the entropy of essence. There was never a moment to pause. Though then again, there was nothing much of note to pause for. Home was an amorphous land of harsh, barbed and quite frankly ugly shapes. The only colours were black, white and a gulf of grey. KD watched as a scaly undulate darted past their ankles.

Soon, vehicles became few. Haru dove in and started swimming while Action Kid remained at the snout of the vehicle, clinging onto KD.

“I don’t know how to swim,” Action Kid said.

KD picked up the boy and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. “I do not either.”

They dogged through the flooded street on hands and feets like a lumbering beast.

“Do you have any brothers?”

“I have plenty of kin within my clan.”

“What are they like?”

At the head of the Ratioli was Kill Gore, the strongest among their clan, a position only obtained through the merit of bloody combat. They had to defeat their previous head, Kill Slaughter, in order to ascend to that rank. KD mourned their loss for aeons, for they were stern yet patient in regard to their shortcomings. The other members of the clan, all with limbs of normal lengths and slender bodies, shunned KD for having long arms, short legs and a rather stout body. Not that they could help either of those things. That was simply how they were formed from the primordial ooze. And yet the clan reared their mask at KD as though they were an accursed stain upon the Ratioli name.

A dragonfly came to settle on KD’s mask, their wings like thin transparent blades. They did not bother to swat it away. “They are hard to impress, however, I shall win back their favour one day. And to that end, I will become stronger, deadlier. A warrior they have no choice but to acknowledge.”

“Kind of like Action Man!”

“Truly?”

“Yeah!” The boy jostled in his seat, and the dragonfly was frightened away. “It’s like in issue twenty-three of Action Man, when he leaves his group of friends to complete his Great Tasks. He does ‘em and stuff so he can finally return home as King of Arcadia. He thinks the people of his kingdom will love him again but they never do. They never have. And really, the people who only ever appreciated him are his group of friends. The ones he fought alongside. Eventually, Action Man would give up his crown.”

KD watched as Haru swam through the water with wide strokes and fluttering kicks. “Is that so?”

“Totally! And then they go on more adventures, and the Kingdom of Arcadia would recruit them for help at one point but I don’t know what happens next. I still haven’t found the next issue of Action Man.”

“Why is your brother in the city? Is he a goon as well?”

Action Kid scoffed. “He’s a soldier!”

“A warrior, how prestigious.”

“And he’s super cool too. The last time I saw him, he was fighting those big monsters, you know, the really biiiiiiig and uuuuuuuugly ones. He said he’d come find me afterwards. I don’t know what’s been taking him so long. There must be a lot of monsters out there.”

“Indeed there are.”

The depth lessened as the group waded into the shallows. Haru crawled onto dry pavement, dripping and wet, while KD and Action Kid emerged rather dry. For a moment she laid there, splayed out like a starfish, panting as she bathed in the sun, that ball of fire in the hazy purple sky.

Downtown had been flattened. The road was a carpet of spoil unfit to walk on as jagged fragments of rubble shifted and clattered under foot. The opulent towers of glass and metal were completely razed. An oppressive quiet foreboded the area, the sort that was won, or at least remained, after a wager of souls. A tingle of familiarity passed through KD, an entropic chill of heat and essence being surrendered to the universe. Something similar possessed Action Kid as well. He had nothing to say despite the upturned vehicles that laid dead on the road. They were different from the rest, with a long protruding barrel, squat flat body, and a set of wheels wrapped in a kind of metal mesh, an armour perhaps.

The hill of rubble was steep, sharp and loose. Mixed in with chunks of concrete were twisted tendrils of rebars and broken glass. Holds would crumble away if a hand or a foot had not carefully tested it out first. A fair few craggy chunks would pelt KD on the head as Haru and Action Kid climbed. They were far more nimble and dexterous, able to quickly find purchase and pull themselves up, negotiating through the terrain. KD chose to simply brute force the hill. Admittedly, a mad scramble was less than graceful, though they did manage to drag themself up to the top.

“What does it look like up there?” Action Kid asked.

One word cropped up: carnage.