Zeke had no idea how long he was running for or how far he was from his allies, but that didn’t matter to him at the time. What mattered was that he was nail-bitingly close to the source of the malicious aura.

The beckoning aura had him running towards a commercial building with an urban design. He burst through the front doors with his shoulder and found Kian in the vast empty hall—save for the modern columns all around. Kian was clad in his Healer’s Garb with a tumorous growth substituting his missing arm.

It was time to bring the pain. Zeke dropped his doctor’s bag and fired a blue vein out of his sleeve; Kian dodged without realizing that wasn’t Zeke’s plan. Zeke pulled the blue vein, launching himself toward Kian, and kicked him off his feet with a sliding tackle.

As Kian was about to enjoy a painful, backbreaking landing on his face, Zeke shot out another vein; it wrapped around the top part of a column, almost touching the ceiling. Then, Zeke was airborne and fell toward Kian, pulling back an angry fist.

Miraculously, Kian nimbly landed on his hands and pushed Zeke back with a well-timed kick to the chin.

Zeke flopped onto his back as Kian rolled forward and got up.

“Rosario. I am trying to do good here,” Kian said, straightening his plague mask. “There is a reason to all of this, and that is—”

Zeke interrupted him with a strong, Mana-charged right hook. It wasn’t just any Mana-charged punch. No, this was a punch that carried all the pain he endured throughout the incredibly long day in which he let one of the Tainted die, in which he helped develop a vaccine, in which he fought against a Fairy Queen, in which he realized just how much of a scumbag Violet really was. Kian wasn’t to blame for that last one, but Zeke felt it was fitting for him to take the pain of that, too.

The punch blasted Kian back a few feet and broke half his mask.

“Oh, so now you want to talk!” Zeke shouted and then extended a vein from each sleeve. He never thought in a million years he would be doing something akin to the infernal-looking rope workout he’d see on TV sometimes, and here he was doing a violent version of it. He pushed into the balls of his feet and moved the veins up and down, hitting Kian with each swing.

“I’ve been told about what you are,” Zeke screamed as he continued the cardio. “I know you’re an elf, and to be honest, I no longer care about the specifics. I’m way past that!”

Zeke paused for a moment and swung both veins in a single robust move, making Kian do a backflip, and that wasn’t it. Zeke speculated that this poor building would have to be reconstructed from scratch by the time he was done with Kian. He apologized to the architects and construction workers in his heart as both veins wrapped around Kian’s throat. Zeke spun and slammed Kian into multiple columns.

The ride didn’t last as long as Zeke wanted once Kian sliced the veins. Kian tumbled across the floor and charged at Zeke, thrusting his diseased sword forward.

Zeke had his arm transformed into its giant veiny form, grabbed onto the sword, yanked it from Kian, and threw it away before it could do any harm. In that split second, Kian thrust the top of his head into Zeke’s face.

The Columbian staggered back and contracted a purple rash on his forehead; as he fought back the urge to scratch, Kian landed a 4-hit combo — neck, shoulder, gut, and knee.

Soon after, Zeke contracted rashes in all those areas and immediately tried to scratch as many spots as possible (with his normal hand).

Kian crouched and summoned his legion of rats. The plague charged at Zeke, using his veiny arm, grabbed onto a column behind him as high as he could reach, and flipped himself up. He shot out a vein, wrapped it around the top of a column, and launched himself even higher, crashing through the ceiling.

Now on the first floor, which was also empty (and lacked columns), Zeke landed on his back and detached his giant arm. He sent a vein down the hole he came through and reeled Kian up into the floor like a fish.

He hit the ceiling on his head and plummeted onto the stone flooring.

While panting and ignoring his body’s whines to scratch the rashes, Zeke eyed Kian covered in dust, struggling to get up. “Isaac truly believes that there was nothing wrong with what he was trying to do, but your mind isn’t that far gone,” he said. “A part of you knows this is wrong, and you don’t care anymore. I don’t really know the specifics of your end goal, but I do know there is nothing noble about what you are trying to do, and you know it! You just want to cause pain, and you’re relishing at the sight of all this misery. Just admit it, Kian.”

Kian sprung up and spat purple phlegm at Zeke. He dodged it and then was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes.

“Alright then, Rosario!” He smiled as Zeke tried to swat away the bugs. “Yes, I like seeing it. I want to make people hurt just like I did.”

Zeke dashed through the swarm and conjured a small ball of veins in his hand. Smaller balls swelled all over the ball of veins, and he hurled it at Kian. It caused a bloody explosion. With Kian blinded by the blood in his eyes for a moment, Zeke landed a kick to his chest. “And what makes it better is that you know the misery you will bring to the Elven Realm will be much worse, isn’t that right, Kian? This here is just your appetizer before the main meal.” He hissed as he felt multiple mosquito bites at once at his neck rash.

In that moment of letting his guard down, Kian zipped at Zeke and pushed his glowing palm against his gut. Zeke arched up, pulled down his mask, and vomited continually.

The puke ejected from his mouth for 20 seconds straight, and Kian didn’t seem to mind the thick, yellowing substance splashing onto his sleeve, followed by bloody foam populated with maggots. Zeke collapsed and curled up on the floor, groaning, feeling as if he had just forced out a thousand tiny knives from his mouth.

“Have you ever met an elf?” Kian asked. “A pure-blood elf?”

Zeke was in too much pain to respond, which was aggravated as Kian turned him over with his boot and pressed it onto his gut. “Mierda!” he exclaimed after coughing up more blood and chunks that fell back onto his face.

“They’re all pompous assholes who think they are above every other creature across the Realms,” Kian ranted. “I can leave if you promise to leave me alone. The disease has been perfected. Save humanity, fine. Even though the angels will continue to pursue you for doing that, but let me have my revenge on the Elven Realm. They deserve it.”

Zeke coughed as he felt the maggots crawling up his sore throat. “You can’t punish a whole race just because of what a couple of them did to you,” he managed to get out.

“Rosario, you don’t know. They’re all the same. Every single one of them.”

Zeke succeeded in pushing Kian’s foot off him and got back up. He attempted a punch, and Kian caught his wrist. “You’re low on Mana. I can feel it,” he said with a smile as his fingers turned black and started to fall off. The cocky smile vanished quickly after losing the second finger. He screamed in pain and then took a punch to the face.

“And your soul’s purity is quite low,” Kian said. “You’re going to get yourself turned into a demon.”

The pain had Zeke look down at leprosy spreading on his hand. Blood and pus were leaking from the stumps. He cleaned off the vomit and blood on his face with his sleeve. “You’re just another member of the Tainted Generation who proves what the angels believe is right. You’re just another fine example of how terrible the Tainted Generation can be. And the worst part of all this is that you have the power to solve most of the world’s health problems, but you, Ashlin, Isaac… Violet…” Zeke looked off to the side and shook his head. “Instead of using your gifts to help people, you want to use them to help tear the world apart for selfish, insane reasons. The angels were right about us. We need to be excised. We cause way more damage to the Realms than good.”

“So, you get to determine whose motives are righteous or not, huh?” Kian said, landing another punch across Zeke’s face. “If it’s not on your moral compass, then it’s wrong? What makes you so pure? Because you’re trying to stop me? You’re only doing this to give yourself a nice pat on the back to feel better about yourself, Rosario. You want to win over the angels with your actions, but let me tell you something, they’re still going to smite you in the end. And guess what? If you turn out to be the Damned, then you’re going to Hell no matter what you do. You have things you want to accomplish, selfish things, and you’re just too afraid to act on them. Rosario, don’t waste your time trying to maintain an image you think the world has of you. Do what you want!”

A war cry came out of Zeke as he intercepted an oncoming punch from Kian. Pushing his diseased hand onto Kian’s elbow, red and blue veins wrapped around his arm.

Kian tried to punch Zeke with his other arm but was intercepted once again. Zeke connected the veins to Kian’s other arm, bringing them together, and the bundle of blood vessels continued to grow.

Next, Zeke pulled back onto a wall and pushed his palm onto—the venous system spread behind the walls, reaching the floor and ceilings, and then burst out. The room was covered in a grid of blood veins. With Zeke’s precise hand movements, the veins followed the command and enwound Kian.

The veins moved quickly and aggressively, doing their little entrapping dance for over a minute until Zeke dropped to his knees to catch his breath. Kian’s struggling grunt had him lift his head up to look at him.

It was like looking at a moronic roadside attraction. The vibrant blue and red sight looked the part for a contender of the world’s biggest ball of yarn. With only Kian’s head sticking out, the rest of his body was hidden under thousands of pounds of blood vessels.

Zeke walked up slowly to Kian as he struggled. There was no need for concern since the mental case had no way to use his hands.

The match was over, yet Zeke found himself blanking on what to do next.

An option came from Kian.

“You better kill me right now, Rosario,” Kian hissed. “Right now.”

Zeke’s eyes widened, and he retreated into his thoughts. Thinking if he was capable of committing murder and the ethics of it. He could sense Vesklepios telling him to finish the job and have the veins contract until Kian’s head popped out of his body.

He grew increasingly frustrated but wasn’t sure why. Was he frustrated with himself for hesitating to end Kian’s miserable life, or was it because he was considering it in the first place?

A strange wet, chewing sound pulled Zeke out of his head, and he saw Kian doing something awfully petty, solidifying himself as a sore loser. Kian was sticking his tongue out at Zeke.

“What are you doing?” Zeke asked unamusedly and then flinched to a rageful plea from Vesklepios to kill the Infectiologist immediately. Foolishly, Zeke ignored the ethereal presence’s voice and called for Kian, realizing he was biting his tongue. “Kian, no, don’t!” His sense of rightness kicked in to stop the suicide.

Then, Kian screamed, “Egretatio Plaga!” and bit off his tongue. As a hefty piece of the muscular organ dropped to the floor, Zeke was blasted back with an expulsion of sickly aura.

He got up and watched in horror as Kian’s face corroded and peeled off, and then it expanded along with his body tearing through the veins in seconds.

Kian was growing alarmingly fast and filling the room before Zeke had the time to run; he was hit with a speeding wall of mass of meat.

###

The impact had Zeke crash through a window and fly across the night sky. He whirled hectically and then started to descend. His iconic high-pitched screams followed, and he hit the surface much sooner than expected… much less painful, too.

Zeke opened his eyes and was on the base of the chariot staring at three different pairs of shoes. He stood up cautiously and looked at Ugo, Aida, and AJ in confusion, and then he looked at Helios’ golden-glowing horses in front of them, running in the air. The reins attached to them were being held by AJ.

“There’s no way we were going to let you fight the final boss on your own! We’re your party!” Ugo said.

Zeke blinked and noticed Naomi and Nananiel, each flying on either side of them.

“Wake up, Ezequias!” Nananiel alerted. “No time for spacing out on this battlefield.”

Zeke slapped both his cheeks, getting his head in the game. First, he asked AJ, “So, you know how to ride horses?”

“Aida just told me what to do,” AJ said, smiling at Aida, who nodded.

Secondly, Zeke asked Aida, “Where’s Akachi?”

“I don’t know,” she responded. “I found the chariot abandoned by the street and can’t sense nor smell him anywhere near this place.”

There was no time for Zeke to theorize what happened to Akachi as the commercial building blew up, sending debris flying everywhere.

Kian was the tallest thing in Bahnhofstrasse. In the form of an ever-growing tumor, he crushed all the buildings and cars around.

The gang stared in horror.

“What the hell…?” Ugo said.

“That’s Kian… he said something and then bit off his tongue,” Zeke said.

“He activated his Manifestation,” Aida said.

“What is that?” Naomi asked fearfully.

“It’s the awakened form of the Healer’s Garb. It’s basically giving most of the control over to the Garb and allowing it to manifest in the physical realm with its real body.”

“I’ve seen a couple of Healer Manifestations myself….” Nananiel said and squinted.

As Kian grew, more tissue formed around his abominable form—different colored hair, mashes of brain tissue, blood vessels and muscle fiber, misshapen eyeballs, hundreds of mouths with jagged teeth, short and long noses, elongated and short arms, contorted legs and bent bones jutting out.

“Things always seem to end with a giant being of some kind, huh?” AJ said, staring up at the monster. “Speaking of which…” she looked over at Naomi.

“I don’t know how I did it the first time…” Naomi muttered.

Aida held her sheathed sword up and put a foot on the chariot’s front rail. “Ugo… you can excise it with your cutting magic.”

“What?” Ugo said and glanced at the massive tumor coated in guardsman red. “No… I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, you can! We can only cut, but your magic can separate things more precisely. Just focus on where Kian is and separate him from the giant form.” Aida said. “I’ll help you.”

Nananiel summoned his snow-white sword. “So will I.”

Ugo stared at the swordmasters offering aid, and it took all doubts away. He raised his surgical knife. “Alright…”

Aida made a loud neigh, and the horses responded, running quicker toward the monster.

“You speak horse?” Zeke asked, thinking that he had already seen all of the weirdness the world had to offer. Clearly, he hadn’t.

A collection of meaty heads rose from the massive tumor, and all released a demonic roar.

“Ezequias, stay alert,” Nananiel said and then looked over at Ugo. “Ready?”

“Vamonos!” Ugo yelled.

A giant head sprouted out from the center of the tumor. It had a long beak and looked similar to Kian’s plague mask but much more alien-like—its brass color blended well with the guardsmen red of the rest of its body.

AJ banked the chariot, allowing the Surgeon and Geneticist to lunge toward the tumor alongside Nananiel, who sped forward.

What followed was imagery Zeke’s brain was going to remind him till the day he died. The sky was covered with electric blue, smoky orange, and snow-white slashes in every direction. There were more of Ugo’s slashes than the others. Chopped pieces of meat and organs were blasting off like some kind of bizarre hurricane, and Kian was falling mid-air in his human form.

As Ugo, Aida, and Nananiel whirled in the bloody meat-covered sky, AJ lowered and brought her hands together. “Zeke!” she shouted.

He acted fast and used the boost to launch himself into the air. He fell for just a moment before Naomi caught him by the wrist and threw him at Kian, who was spinning in the air.

Zeke tackled him, and the two glided through the air (Naomi threw him a little too hard). Their flight ended when they crashed through the giant clock of a tower.

As they rolled across the floor of the tower’s interior, their Healer’s Garbs dissipated. When they stopped, neither of the combatants got up.

Quite some time passed, and nothing happened.

Zeke was awakened by his smartphone’s ringtone (playing the God of the Rings theme). He slowly pulled the phone out of his pocket and stared at its cracked screen in shock that it was still working at all.

Looks like tech giants did earn the right to overprice their products after all.

Something someone said over the line had Zeke spring up on his injured legs and nod repeatedly. He hung up and began shaking.

A menacing laughter rose from his gut.

In response to the laughing fit, Kian got up on one knee. “What’s so funny?” he asked angrily.

“You just lost.” Zeke continued laughing as he slogged up to the clock they crashed through. “Come see.” His laughter raised a couple of volumes louder.

Kian pulled himself up and slogged over to Zeke.

The two had a clear view of the city through the hole in the clock. They could see the debris, pieces of meat littering the streets and buildings that weren’t destroyed, and the massive tent in the distance.

But there was also an army of mosquitoes buzzing around.

“I bet most of your confidence stemmed from believing that we wouldn’t have an effective way of administering the vaccine even if we came up with one,” Zeke explained. “When it comes to infectious diseases, vectors are the best agents to spread it quickly, so why not use a vector of our own to spread our plasmid?” He looked over at Kian as he thought back to the suggestion he gave to Wade before leaving for the Fairy Realm. They were lucky Aida turned back to normal in time to finalize the vaccine when returning from the sewers. “With Aida’s breeding powers, creating mosquitoes which carried our vaccine wasn’t hard and look….” Zeke pointed up at the moon. “Scientists say mosquitoes are more active when the moon is full. Lucky us…”

Kian glared at Zeke.

“You lose,” he said, smiling.