The air in the street had thickened into a soup of coppery blood, sweat, and acrid smoke. The initial chaotic brawl had boiled down to a grim, panting stalemate. The asphalt was slick with gore, littered with the moaning forms of the wounded from both sides. Of the SXV, only Vel, Ace, Mikaze, and Rez remained on their feet, backs to the wall of their warehouse. They were bruised, bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts, and breathing in ragged gasps. Ace had a nasty gash above his eyebrow, bleeding into his eye, and Mikaze favored his right leg.
Across from them, the mob had been whittled down to ten. But these were no common thugs. These were the hardened core of the Grey Fog and Wrecking Crew. Four stood directly facing Vel: Silas, the cold-eyed leader of the Grey Fog, wielding a pair of weighted saps; his vice, a hulking brute named Gregor, who spun a heavy chain with a hooked end; and from the Wrecking Crew, their new acting leader, a wiry, venomous woman named Kora, who flexed her razor-edged knuckle-dusters, and her second, a man named Flint, who held a fire axe.
The other six high-ranked members had fanned out, engaging the rest of the SXV. Ace was locked in a furious, close-quarters exchange with two of them, his knives a blur against their crowbars, the clash of steel ringing in the night. Mikaze and Rez fought back-to-back, a study in contrasts: Mikaze using a reclaimed pipe to deflect and parry with desperate efficiency, while Rez, his crossbow empty, fought with a tactical knife, making precise, disabling jabs at the limbs of their three opponents.
The focus, however, was the circle of death around Vel.
Silas moved first, feinting high with one sap while the other whistled low toward Vel's knee. Vel didn't block. He sidestepped the low blow, feeling the wind of it pass, and used the momentum to spin inside Silas's guard. CARNAGE licked out, aiming for Silas's wrist. The Grey Fog leader was fast, yanking his hand back, but the dagger's tip still opened a deep gash across his knuckles. He hissed in pain, retreating a step.
But the attack had opened Vel to the others. Gregor's chain snaked out, the hook aiming for Vel's throat. Vel dropped into a crouch, the hook whistling over his head. As he rose, Kora was on him, her punches a flurry of sharp, metallic jabs. He caught one on PURGATORY's hilt, the impact jarring his arm, but another connected with his ribs, and he felt a fresh bolt of agony. He grunted, shoving her back with a hard kick to her midsection.
Flint chose that moment to bring the fire axe down in a two-handed overhead chop. It was a killing blow, meant to split Vel from skull to sternum. There was no time to dodge fully. Vel crossed his daggers above his head in an 'X', bracing for the impact.
The crash was tremendous. A shower of sparks erupted as the axe blade bit into the crossed daggers. The force of it drove Vel to one knee, the muscles in his arms screaming in protest. He was trapped, holding the weight of the axe at bay, utterly exposed.
Silas, gripping his bleeding hand, smiled a cold, triumphant smile. He stepped in for the kill.
It was then that a new sound cut through the din of combat—the distinct, metallic shunk of a heavy door being forced open from the inside, followed by a voice that cracked with panic from an upper window.
"VEL! THEY'RE INSIDE! TITAN'S INSIDE!"
It was one of the younger kids, their voice shrill with terror.
The effect was instantaneous. Vel's head snapped toward the sound. His focus, for a single, catastrophic second, broke.
That was all the opening Silas needed. He lunged, his good hand driving a sap straight toward Vel's temple.
But Vel's reaction was not one of despair. It was a transformation. The cold, calculating fighter vanished, replaced by something feral and primal. The thought of his people, the kids he had just tucked away in the panic room, being in danger unleashed a torrent of pure, unadulterated rage.
He didn't try to block the sap. He took it.
The weighted weapon connected with his temple with a sickening thud. The world exploded in white light and a ringing filled his ears. But he had rolled with the blow, using the shocking impact to twist his body. The move shifted the angle on the locked axe. Flint, caught by surprise, stumbled forward.
And Vel let go of PURGATORY.
His right hand, now free, shot upward like a piston, fingers rigid. He drove them directly into Flint's throat. There was a horrific crunch of cartilage. Flint's eyes bulged, his grip on the axe loosening as he choked, stumbling backward and collapsing.
In the same motion, Vel wrenched CARNAGE free from the axe lock and, still on one knee, swept the blade in a low, vicious arc. It severed the back of Gregor's ankle as the brute tried to capitalize. Gregor roared, crashing to the ground like a felled tree.
Vel surged to his feet, the world swaying, blood streaming from the gash on his temple. He ignored Silas and Kora, his blazing eyes fixed on the warehouse.
"RIOT!" he bellowed, his voice a raw, ragged thing.
From inside, a shaky but defiant voice yelled back. "I GOT 'EM, BOSS! Three suits in the main room! They're fancy! And they're held at gunpoint! But... I could use some backup!"
The battlefield had just been split in two. Outside, Vel stood wounded but terrifyingly defiant against the remaining leaders. Inside, Riot was holding off a Titan infiltration team with what was likely his last bullet. The fight for the streets had just become a fight for their home.
The world narrowed to a pinpoint of horrific clarity. Vel saw the faint, oily sheen on Kora's razored knuckles, a sickly green in the firelight. Poison. A coward's weapon. The kind that promised a slow, agonizing end even from a glancing blow.
And then he heard it—a wet, choked gurgle that had no place being Ace's voice.
His eyes snapped to the side. Ace, still battling two enforcers, had been distracted for a split second by a cry from inside the warehouse. It was all the opening one needed. A thin, cruel blade, wielded by a wiry Grey Fog executive, slipped past Ace's guard and found his neck.
Time didn't slow. It shattered.
Ace's eyes, wide with shock, met Vel's for an eternal instant. The fierce, unwavering loyalty in them flickered, then went dark. He collapsed, his body hitting the ground with a finality that was louder than any explosion.
"ACE!" The roar that tore from Vel's throat was not a name, but a raw, open wound given sound.
The grief was a physical blow, but it was the guilt that ignited the fuse. He had promised to look after his own. He had told them to stay inside, to let him handle it. He had failed.
Distraction. Hope. Concern. These were luxuries he could no longer afford. They were weights that had just gotten his brother killed.
Silas, seeing Vel's shattered focus, saw his chance. He lunged, not with his sap, but with a long, narrow stiletto he'd drawn from his boot. The blade, aimed for the kidney, sunk deep into Vel's back.
The pain was a white-hot brand. But it was the trigger.
It was as if his body moved faster than his nervous system could register the agony. Even as the metal slid into him, he was already rotating, a violent, spinning pivot on the ball of his foot that defied physics. The move was so brutally fast it was a blur, the stiletto tearing a wider, more vicious wound as he wrenched himself free from Silas's grip.
Blood poured down his back, hot and slick. But Vel didn't stagger. He didn't cry out.
He changed.
A staggering wave of adrenaline, a final, desperate cocktail of grief, rage, and sheer will, flooded his system. The last vestiges of the strategic leader, the careful fighter, were burned away. What remained was a core of pure, incandescent vengeance. The world became monochrome, painted in shades of blood and shadow. The ringing in his ears from Silas's earlier blow became a high-pitched hum, the soundtrack to a slaughter.
His eyes, when they locked onto Silas, held no more emotion than a shark's.
Silas, still holding the bloodied stiletto, took an involuntary step back. The man before him was no longer human.
Vel moved.
He didn't run; he appeared in front of Silas. CARNAGE, forgotten on the ground during the spin, was irrelevant. His bare hand shot out, catching the wrist of Silas's knife hand. There was a sickening crack as bones splintered under the force. Before Silas could even scream, Vel's other hand, fingers curled like talons, slammed into his throat, crushing his windpipe.
He let the choking leader drop, his life ending in silent, desperate spasms.
He turned to Kora. She swung her poisoned fist, a wild, panicked arc. Vel didn't dodge. He caught her fist in his own, the razored metal cutting into his palm. He didn't flinch. He squeezed. The sound of delicate bones in her hand shattering was like stepping on gravel. Her scream was cut short as his forehead smashed into her face, breaking her nose and stunning her. He released her broken hand, grabbed her by the hair, and with a final, brutal jerk, snapped her neck.
Gregor, still on the ground clutching his severed ankle, looked up in time to see Death staring down at him. He had time for one last, pathetic swing of his chain. Vel caught the hook in mid-air, yanked it, and drove the metal point directly into Gregor's eye socket. The brute shuddered and went still.
It had taken less than ten seconds.
The remaining executives, who had been pressing Mikaze and Rez, froze. The sight of their leaders being dismantled with such brutal, inhuman efficiency broke them. The fight went out of them completely.
But Vel wasn't done. Vengeance wasn't a switch that turned off. His blazing eyes, empty of all recognition, fixed on the warehouse. On the Titan suits who had dared to invade his home, whose interference had cost Ace his life.
He began to walk toward the door, a bloody, unstoppable specter. The wound on his back wept crimson, the poison from Kora's blades burned in the cuts on his hand, but he felt none of it. He was a weapon now, and a weapon felt no pain.
Mikaze, panting and bleeding, saw the look in his brother's eyes and felt a chill deeper than any fear he'd known tonight. This wasn't Vel. This was the entity he kept chained in the dark. And the chains had just snapped.
"Vel..." Mikaze whispered, but the word was lost.
The King was dead. Long live the Vengeance.