Alexander stood there with his hands buried in his pockets, his stance deceptively casual. Yet his eyes betrayed no such ease. They were locked, unwavering, drilling directly into Caspian's very soul. The two figures faced each other in a silence that was heavier than steel, every second stretching into eternity.
For a moment, Alexander's gaze flicked away, shifting toward his brother. Seymour hadn't moved — not once, not since the beginning. He still sat there with the same infuriating composure, his arms resting loosely, his body radiating patience as though he had all the time in the world.
Alexander let out a long sigh, almost weary, before finally drawing his hands free from his pockets. Straightening his posture, he lifted his left hand and placed it against the side of his head. With a deliberate tilt, he cracked the ligaments in his neck. The sound was sharp, echoing faintly through the silent clearing.
"Well then," he said, his voice solemn, his words carrying the finality of inevitability. "I suppose we must begin."
Anyone with the slightest insight could see it — Alexander didn't want this fight. Not truly. He wasn't a man seeking glory, nor was he eager to destroy the boy standing before him. He was fulfilling Caspian's wish, and that wish was his own death. But Alexander wasn't the kind of man to roll over and accept execution. He would not allow Caspian to kill him — not without proving the strength of his own life first. If Caspian could best him in combat, then perhaps… perhaps the story would end differently.
"It's been quite a while since I've fought for real," Seymour said suddenly, breaking the silence. His voice carried a wry amusement as he leaned back, then sprang gracefully from the table he had been perched upon. His boots touched the ground with barely a sound.
He smirked, his aura faintly glowing, already awake with restrained power. "Shall we fight together, brother? One last time." His grin widened, sharp and dangerous.
Alexander turned his head toward him. For the briefest of moments, his stern mask cracked, and something warmer flickered behind his eyes. Not joy, not relief — but perhaps something close.
No situation, he thought, was without its small victories. Even now, in this bitter night, there was one: his relationship with Seymour, fractured and worn with age, had found some spark of rekindling. If only slight, it was something.
"We shall," Alexander answered at last. His voice was measured, but it carried with it an old bond, reforged in the heat of looming battle.
And then he moved.
Alexander took a step forward — and vanished.
Caspian's eyes narrowed. Instinct screamed at him, and he jerked his head left, then right. Too late. A shadow materialized in front of him, and Alexander's fist was already there. The blow connected with Caspian's head, and the force was monstrous. He was sent hurtling backward, his body smashing into the wall of the ruined bar with a sickening crack. Dust and splinters rained down around him as the wall quivered from the impact.
Caspian staggered, his vision ringing, the world spinning around him. He dragged himself upright, his body swaying, eyes unfocused. But when he blinked, his gaze sharpened — just in time to see Alexander launching another punch.
It never landed.
A green shimmer flashed into existence, a translucent wall that glowed faintly with runic patterns. The air itself seemed to harden between Caspian and Alexander, absorbing the titan's strike with an unnatural hum. The energy bent under the force but did not break.
Alexander's eyes widened. His fist hadn't struck flesh, nor stone. It had collided with… air? A wall of light? His knuckles ached faintly as he drew his hand back, incredulous.
From the side, a voice broke the tension.
"You know," Rowen said disapprovingly, his grin widening like a blade unsheathed, "it's rude to start a fight with a surprise attack."
Alexander's eyes cut toward him, sharp as daggers, but Rowen's grin only deepened. His hand glowed faintly with emerald energy, his casual posture betraying nothing of the immense power he had just displayed.
"Hey, your fights with me—" Seymour's voice cut in, sharp with amusement. His body flared with light grey energy, the aura rolling off him like smoke. His eyes glinted with challenge as he stepped forward.
He extended a hand, brushing his fingertips lightly against the rusted metal door of the bar. At his touch, the door groaned, then began to soften and drip like melted wax. The corroded iron twisted unnaturally, warping and crawling upward into his palm.
Within seconds, it had reshaped itself into a weapon — a long, jagged blade that gleamed with unnatural luster, half-light, half-metal, a sword forged of his will alone.
"…so don't get distracted," Seymour finished, raising the weapon in a single smooth motion. His grin returned, sharp as the edge of the blade itself.
The atmosphere thickened, tension coiling tighter and tighter. Four presences now pressed against each other in the ruined clearing — Alexander, Seymour, Caspian, and Rowen — each radiating their own distinct energy, each powerful enough to crack the earth beneath their feet.
The night held its breath.
And then, the world shifted.
The bar was silent but for the rustle of leaves, the faint creak of trees shifting in the wind, and the low breath of those who stood within it. A stillness had fallen over the night, the sort that came only when nature itself recoiled, knowing violence was about to erupt. Moonlight filtered weakly through the canopy, spilling across splintered wood and broken glass from the ruined bar, glinting in the eyes of men who had no intention of holding back.
Caspian stood unmoving, head slightly lowered, the faintest trace of frost creeping across the ground at his feet. Alexander watched him with steady eyes, his arms loose at his sides, as if waiting for Caspian to make the first move. But his posture was deceptive; there was nothing relaxed about it. His muscles, beneath his coat, were coiled like steel cables ready to snap. Seymour flexed his fingers around the blade he had coaxed from the old door, its edges glinting with unnatural sharpness. Rowen lingered in the shadows, his grin fixed, his weight shifted forward like a predator just before the pounce.
Then—motion.
Alexander blurred forward, a step that cracked the earth beneath him. His fist arced out, straight for Caspian's face, the air itself bending with the sheer velocity of the strike. Caspian's gaze flicked up at the last instant, cold and detached, and the world around him faltered. Time staggered, slowed, then stopped. The leaves froze mid-fall, dust hung suspended in the air, Alexander's fist lingered inches from Caspian's cheek, veins bulging in his arm from the frozen effort.
Caspian stepped aside, his body weaving through the frozen world like a shadow slipping through glass. He moved behind Alexander, exhaling slow, steady, as his eyes narrowed. Time surged back into motion. Alexander's fist met nothing but air, his body twisting as his momentum carried him forward. Caspian's palm slammed into his back, forcing him forward several steps.
Alexander turned sharply, planting his feet, his lips curling faintly. He had felt the displacement of air, the impossible lapse, the sensation of being pushed by someone who should not have been there. He didn't ask how. He simply adjusted. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists tighter.
Steel scraped against stone. Seymour's blade swept upward in a gleaming arc, Rowen slipping back from the cut with a laugh. His foot tapped the earth, and the ground beneath Seymour's next step shifted, softening to the texture of wet clay in an instant. Seymour sank a fraction, his balance disrupted. Rowen lunged, fist cocked, his knuckles crashing into Seymour's jaw with a force that sent the older man staggering back.
But Seymour's recovery was immediate. Metal groaned as he drove his blade into the ground, pulling a strip of iron upward as though the soil itself had been veins of ore. The steel coiled and twisted like serpents, snapping toward Rowen's midsection. Rowen's hand flicked and the metal slowed, its weight suddenly unbearable, slamming uselessly against the dirt. He ducked low, closing the distance, his knee hammering into Seymour's ribs.
Caspian was already moving again, his body weaving in closer to Alexander. Another punch came, a haymaker wide enough to have shattered the trunk of a tree. Caspian's head tilted and the world faltered once more. The punch dragged like it had been thrown through water. He stepped inward, pressing past the arc, his elbow driving up beneath Alexander's ribs. Time resumed, and Alexander's breath hissed between his teeth, but he did not stagger. Instead, his arm swelled, muscle and bone surging grotesquely in size. His forearm was suddenly a slab of flesh and sinew thicker than Caspian's chest. He brought it crashing downward like a hammer.
Caspian vanished sideways, sliding out from beneath the blow as it tore a crater into the earth. Stone shattered, dirt exploded, and the trees shook from the impact. Alexander rose from the debris with a faint smile, rotating his shoulder as though pleased to be moving in earnest for the first time in years.
Rowen twisted sideways as Seymour's sword slashed down, the arc clean enough to have bisected him had he not shifted his density at the last instant. The blade rang against him like it had struck stone, sparks flying across the night. Rowen's fist snapped forward, but Seymour caught it with his free hand, metal curling up from the ground to coil around Rowen's wrist. It locked, tightening like shackles. Rowen's grin only widened. His wrist shimmered faintly, weight collapsing to almost nothing, and the metal slipped free. He spun, catching Seymour in the temple with a backhand that sent him skidding across the clearing.
Caspian's breath came steady as he approached Alexander again. There was no haste, no waste in his movement. Alexander lunged low this time, his enlarged leg whipping upward in a brutal kick. Caspian froze the moment at the apex of the strike, stepping inside its arc, and when time resumed, he lashed a fist into the underside of Alexander's knee. The giant limb buckled slightly, but Alexander did not fall. He drove his elbow backward, catching Caspian in the shoulder and sending him tumbling across the dirt.
Caspian rolled to his feet, the frost deepening around him now, his expression unchanged. Alexander cracked his knuckles again, nodding slightly, as though acknowledging him.
Steel whistled. Seymour's blade fractured into a dozen smaller shards, whipping through the air in jagged spirals, each one humming with killing intent. Rowen weaved between them, each shard that came close suddenly plummeting to the earth, its weight increased a thousandfold in an instant. The ground quaked with each impact, fissures splitting outward. Rowen closed distance again, leaping high, spinning into a kick that cracked against Seymour's raised blade. Sparks showered in a cascade of orange, their faces inches apart. Seymour's teeth were bared, his muscles straining against the force. Rowen's grin never wavered.
Alexander roared forward again, his torso swelling, muscles expanding, arms bulging as though carved from mountains. He swung wide, a fist the size of a boulder crashing toward Caspian. Time fractured again—Caspian stepping through the cracks, weaving between the distorted fragments of motion. He appeared beneath Alexander's guard, his hand snapping to the giant's throat. For the briefest instant, his eyes burned with something sharp, almost desperate. Then time surged forward, and he wrenched Alexander sideways, slamming him to the ground.
The impact split the earth, dust pluming outward in a choking cloud. Alexander's body lay half-buried in stone, but his grin remained, even as he pushed himself free with impossible strength. His laugh rumbled low, almost admiring. "Good…" he muttered, his voice heavy. "Better than good."
Seymour thrust his hand outward, the ground erupting in metallic spikes that surged toward Rowen like a forest of blades. Rowen danced through them, his body weaving as each spike bent unnaturally beneath its own sudden weight, collapsing harmlessly to the ground. He sprinted along one, kicking off it, twisting in midair. His fist came down across Seymour's jaw, sending blood spraying. Seymour reeled, then retaliated, his blade slashing upward, carving a line across Rowen's ribs. Rowen hissed through clenched teeth but only laughed louder, blood soaking his shirt.
Caspian and Alexander clashed again. Caspian blurred in close, his fists darting with surgical precision, striking at joints, ribs, throat. Alexander absorbed each blow, his massive frame bending but never breaking, answering with strikes that shook the ground with each miss. Caspian froze, struck, unfroze, each attack perfectly placed, but Alexander adapted, his enlarged arms sweeping wider arcs, forcing Caspian to retreat. One swing finally caught him across the chest, even in his slowed world, and the force hurled him into a tree with bone-jarring violence. The trunk split, bark exploding, the whole tree crashing down as Caspian slid to the earth beneath it.
His hand pressed to the ground, frost spidering outward in delicate veins, climbing up the fallen tree, turning its splintered remains into brittle ice. He rose slowly, wiping blood from his mouth. His gaze found Alexander again, calm, merciless.
Rowen caught Seymour's sword-arm in both hands, twisting sharply. The blade jerked aside, its edge slicing harmlessly through empty air. Rowen's knee drove upward, slamming into Seymour's stomach, folding him. But Seymour snarled, ripping his other hand upward, pulling raw steel from the earth like a living thing. It coiled around Rowen's leg, dragging him downward. Rowen shifted, the metal collapsing under its own impossible density, and slammed his forehead into Seymour's face with a crack that echoed like a bell. Blood poured from Seymour's nose, but his grip on his blade never faltered.
The night was filled with the sound of destruction—trees splintering, stone shattering, the ground itself breaking beneath the weight of men who were more force of nature than flesh. The air reeked of iron, frost, and blood.
Caspian darted forward once more, his movements a blur of fractured time, his strikes relentless. Alexander answered with fists like avalanches, each one threatening to end the fight in a single blow. Seymour and Rowen's duel twisted through the chaos, steel shrieking against bone, laughter clashing against snarls, every moment a knife-edge between victory and annihilation.
And still, none of them yielded.
Alexander's chest heaved, his lungs dragging in ragged breaths—but his mouth twisted into a smile all the same. Sweat and blood streaked down his temple, glistening in the pale light, yet his voice boomed with a strength that seemed untouched.
"Is this all you've got!?" His words cracked through the room like a thunderclap.
He straightened his spine despite the tremor in his arms, his presence swelling, filling the space as though the walls themselves might buckle beneath it.
"Where is your conviction?" His eyes gleamed like fire, daring, taunting. "I thought you came here to kill me!"
His laughter rang out, harsh and triumphant, the sound of a man who refused to yield.
"To kill a great man," he thundered, his voice echoing in every corner, "you must be greater still."
He took a step forward, each motion weighted with defiance. The floor creaked beneath his boots as though straining under his sheer will.
"Tell me!" he roared, his words a storm. "Are you greater—greater than the greatest fighter this world has ever seen!?"
The very air seemed to vibrate under his challenge, daring anyone to answer.