The forest didn't explode. It simply ceased to exist.
One moment there were trees, shadows, the soft hush of wind through leaves. The next—fire, lightning, claws, and blood. No one knew who moved first. Maybe everyone did.
Wolfen's hand closed around Umbralite. The scythe formed in his grip, black and hungry. Across the clearing, his wrong self did the same. Same weapon. Same stance. Same eyes.
They met in the center.
CLANG.
The sound was wrong—not metal on metal, but metal on something that wished it was metal. Sparks flew, died, were reborn. Both of them pushed, neither giving ground.
Above, Leo and his wrong self were lightning given form. They moved through the sky like comets, trails of electricity arcing between them, around them, through them. The clouds themselves seemed to recoil.
Maya had stopped pretending to be human. Her body was black armor, spikes, and a tail that could cut stone. The other Maya met her head-on, identical, inevitable. They crashed together like mountains.
Eva and wrong Eva fought like they were trying to kill themselves. Every punch was personal. Every block was an argument. They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
Wrong Derek charged at Lena. She vanished. Appeared behind him. Slashed. Vanished. Appeared again. He was fast. She was faster.
The Jordans were a blur of steel—his katana from Kobai Rei, the other's Umbralite blade. They moved in perfect parallel, each strike matched, each counter anticipated.
But the real fight was elsewhere.
---
Wolfen and his wrong self moved away from the chaos, through the burning trees, across the scorched earth, until the sounds of battle were just echoes. They stopped. Circled each other.
Neither smiled.
"Do you have a Zoey?" Wrong Wolfen's voice was flat. "In this world. Do you have a Zoey?"
Wolfen's jaw tightened. "I do."
"Mine died." A pause. "In my hands. By my hands."
Wolfen said nothing.
They vanished.
They met in the middle—fireballs in both hands, pressed together, straining. The explosion was silent, then deafening, then silent again. Both of them emerged from the smoke, slashing, parrying, bleeding.
Wolfen raised his hand. A fireball formed—not the small, quick ones he usually threw, but something massive, something that made the air itself scream. The heat was unbearable. The ground beneath him cracked.
Wrong Wolfen didn't dodge. He raised his arms. Umbralite flowed over him like water, covering him in black armor from head to toe.
"BOOM."
The blast carved a crater a mile wide. Trees were gone. Grass was gone. Soil was gone. There was nothing left but ash and glass and two men standing in the center of hell.
They circled each other.
"I'm surprised," Wrong Wolfen said. "You're not like me."
"How am I not like you?"
Wrong Wolfen's golden eyes were cold. "If you had done the things I've done—if you had walked the path I've walked—you'd be just as evil as me."
Wolfen considered this. "I've done bad things. Plenty of them. But I think..." He paused. "I think I had a reason. Hope, maybe."
"Hope?" Wrong Wolfen's voice was mocking. "Hope for what?"
"That it'll all be better soon."
Wrong Wolfen laughed. There was no joy in it. "I thought that for twenty years. Nothing changed. And my Zoey died. The only person who thought I could do good died in my hands. Because of me." He looked at Wolfen. "You still have your Zoey. That's why you haven't walked my path yet."
"Maybe." Wolfen's voice was quiet. "Maybe not."
"Have you ever been kind to anyone?" Wrong Wolfen asked. "Have you ever spared someone's life?"
Wolfen didn't answer.
"No." Wrong Wolfen's smile was bitter. "No, you haven't. All you've done is take lives. Manipulate people. Treat them like tools. I know. Because I'm you." He paused. "Zoey isn't ours. She'll never be ours. She's just our favorite illusion."
Wolfen nodded. "True."
They moved.
The ground melted beneath their feet. Fire and fire met in the center, both of them pushing, neither yielding. They exchanged hit after hit—same punches, same counters, same blood.
They stepped back. Both raised their hands. Both fired.
Two beams—highly dense, highly concentrated, hotter than anything either of them had ever made—met in the middle. The collision didn't explode. It grew. A ball of fire, burning and burning, feeding on itself, becoming something that shouldn't exist. Above it, a mouth formed—the shape of a dragon, open, roaring.
The noise was deafening.
They emerged from opposite sides of the fireball, both burned, both bleeding. Wrong Wolfen tried to absorb the heat—his body pulling the flames in, feeding on them, healing. But Wolfen had mixed his fire with Pulse. The versions couldn't do that. The versions didn't know how.
Wrong Wolfen's eyes widened.
Wolfen hit him. One punch, upward, sending him into the sky. He rose like a rocket, faster, faster, until he was just a speck against the grey.
He fell like a nuclear bomb.
The impact cratered the earth. Wrong Wolfen lay at the bottom, broken, burning, healing too slow.
Wolfen was already in the air, fire jetting from his feet, diving down like a fighter jet. His fist was covered in fire and Umbralite—full strength, everything he had.
Wrong Wolfen met him with the same.
Their fists collided.
The shockwave traveled for miles. The earth trembled. The sky seemed to crack.
Both arms shattered. Both men flew backward, landing in craters of their own making.
Wolfen's bones were knitting. Pulse was flooding through him, faster than before, faster than it should. He was healing.
Wrong Wolfen wasn't.
Wolfen vanished. He reappeared with his arm through his evil self's chest. Through the heart.
Wrong Wolfen's golden eyes met his.
"Tell Zoey—" He stopped. Shook his head. "No. Nevermind. She's not even mine."
Wolfen's voice was quiet. "I'll tell her I love her. For you."
Wrong Wolfen smiled. Blood dripped from his mouth. "Well. That's the truth, isn't it?"
Wolfen's other hand ripped his evil version's head from his shoulders.
He stood there, holding it, looking at it. The face was his. The eyes were empty. The smile was frozen.
He dropped the head. It hit the ground with a soft thud.
Wolfen looked at his hands. At the blood. At the body. He felt nothing.
He had killed himself. And felt nothing.
The truth was obvious. He had tried to kill himself plenty of times before. Maybe that's why.
He looked around—at the ash, the glass, the crater where a forest used to be. At the destruction he had caused. He knew there would be more. There would always be more of him.
He looked up at the sky. Closed his eyes.
When will I have peace?
The sky didn't answer.
The wind blew ash across the crater.
Somewhere, far away, the battle continued. But here, in the center of hell, there was only silence.