“You’re fucking dead Donny.” He said, taking another step toward me. “I’m going to chop you to pieces, and feed you to people that actually have enough fucking brains to know when to fall in line.”

“I thought you were looking for people capable of thinking for themselves?” I asked, adjusting my aim slightly.

“You’ve thoroughly dissuaded me of that stupid fucking notion. You know, I haven’t been pissed off enough to leave my house in decades? You could have had power, women, all the flesh you can eat. I’m guessing Hades' idea to open a school in Pott’s never panned out?” He took another step toward me.

“It did. I’m just a fucking idiot.” I activated Freeze and fired the pistol, aiming for his head, but he moved before I pulled the trigger and was halfway to me before I could pull it again. He dodged my second shot, and I had just enough time to pull up my sword before his axes slammed into them and drove me back a yard. He was as strong as he was fast, and I struggled to bring my sword back up to block a flurry of blows from each of the axes, activating my Adaptive Empowerment, and letting the red overtake my vision.

As we fought, I regularly activated my Freeze ability. If he was as fast as he was with it active, I had no desire to see how fast he could be without it. I managed to block an ax-strike in such a way that one of the First’s axes was locked in place, and I raised my pistol to fire on him. I got three shots center mass before he sliced deep into my arm with his other ax and kicked me away.

I hit a tree and rolled around it. He came in with more ax blows, but I stayed close to the thick trunk of the tree, and used it to help block and slow his attack. It worked, and when one of the axes got lodged in the tree I was able to make a counterattack, slashing with my sword and cutting across his stomach. The edge of my sword gained a coat of slick glowing blood.

The First backed away with a grimace, but the cut was healed in moments. He roared and charged me with a series of blows faster than anything I’d ever seen before. I couldn't actually see the axes, but dodged, parried, and blocked by pure instinct as I was driven away from the tree and further back. I was covered with knicks, then cuts, then deep rends as he slowly peeled away my defenses with sheer speed and ferocity. The only reason I was able to stay alive was experience. The First was not a great fighter, he was heavily reliant on his abilities, and so I was able to feint and maneuver and use my footing to at least stay alive, but that wasn’t enough for me to win, it wasn’t even enough to be able to strike back.

He knocked my sword down with one ax and the other slammed into my chest before I could react, and I was driven to my knees. I was too slow, and not healing quite as quickly as he was. I just couldn’t keep up, our strength was at the same level, but that didn’t matter if I couldn’t hit him or make it a straight up fight.

He smiled and kicked me off of his ax. There was a sickening squelching sound as it came out of my chest. I could feel it starting to heal even after I hit the ground, but I wasn’t able to bring myself back to my feet before he was on top of me. He struck me with each of his axes, cutting me as deeply as he could without cutting through me completely, a laugh coming from him as he rained blows down on me. My vision was no longer tinged in red, but blackness, and it slowly began to close in on me.

The First stopped for a moment, laughing a bit more and wiping a single tear from his eye as he sighed with satisfaction. “Woo! I’d forgotten how fun it can be to get your hand dirty every once in a while. I mean, I occasionally slit a throat or eat someone alive, but it’s not quite the same as a fight.” He stretched, and drove one of his axes in a nearby tree, then raised his remaining one with both hands and brought it down on the center of my chest almost casually.

The blackness closed in tighter.

“You know, I was eventually going to go back to Pott’s, maybe murder everyone, or enslave them. I was planning to take my time, mind you, spend a century or so consolidating things here after I expanded, but now… I’m thinking I may ramp things up. It could be fun to throw your head into the center of the city as I invade, and I don’t know that it would keep all that long.” He moved, and put his foot on my neck so that he could pull the ax from my chest.

I used the last of my strength and grabbed his foot just as the axe was pulled free. I yanked it toward my mouth bit down, tearing a chunk out of it.

“Sonuvabitch!” he yelled, stumbling back.

I swallowed, and suddenly I felt like there was an explosion going off inside me. I involuntarily began to draw in the radiation around me, and my skin felt like it was on fire. I began twisting and writhing in pain.

The first shook his foot, and it was whole again then he stepped toward me. “That was stupid. From what my people tell me that hurts far more than getting chopped to bits.”

I could barely hear him, my body felt like it was tearing itself apart.

“Unfortunately, you’ll be going through that while I chop you to bits.” he took another step forward and raised his ax.

I focused through the pain, and launched myself toward the First like a wild animal. The blackness that was in my vision vanished, replaced by the familiar red. I hit him, and we slammed into a tree, the outside of its trunk cracking as we hit it.

The First coughed up blood, then pushed me away. He roared and started slamming his axes down at me. They were slower now. I dodged the ax-blows, gritting my teeth as every cell in my body screamed at me, and I sent out cuts of my own. We still weren’t even, but now I was able to return one or two hits for every five of his, and mine were cutting deeper and hitting harder than his were.

Even though I was getting hit more, I was pushing him back more than he was pushing me back, but it was a battle of attrition, and even with my last minute push I had still taken far more damage than he had. I started to slow down, and he took notice. I had been so close. Less than a mile from the explosives, if I’d had just a few minutes to get to them and dig them up, if he hadn’t pursued me himself, things would’ve turned out differently.

I had an idea. I holstered my pistol, and grabbed the dangling control of my jump pack, then made a slow, obvious slash at the First. He batted it aside, and moved in close for a strike at my throat, but I ducked below it and pressed the button, slamming into him.

We flew through the air. Me holding tightly to him while he tried to escape my grasp.

“FUUUCK!” He screamed as we flew through the air.

My mental map was accurate, and we landed hard in a small clearing I recognized. I let him go and rolled to the far end of the clearing, using my momentum to get myself as far from him as possible, putting the patch of recently dug earth between us. I drew my laspistol and stayed low.

The First picked himself up, a broken leg knitting itself quickly together. “You’re a real pain in my ass Donny. Gotta admit you’ve got great taste in toys though.” He started moving toward me, and once he stepped on the patch of dirt I raised my laspistol at him. He laughed, “Back to how we started, huh? Didn’t work on me the first time, what makes you think it will this time?”

I fired at his feet, once, twice, three times. He started laughing again, and walking toward me with his axes, but I kept firing. Five times, six.

The ground beneath the First erupted as the explosives I had buried all ignited at once. I saw his expression shift for just a moment, his smile dropping as I saw true fear touch his face for the first time, then the explosion blinded me and I was thrown backward, and everything went white.