Jessica Jones was in dire straits, her body battered. Wounds littered her frame, her outer clothes torn to rags, hanging off her like tattered banners.
The countless gashes made her look like a horror movie ghoul.
Dim light filtered into the dark underground maze, casting faint glows. Her relentless fighting had left her handaxe notched against the walls.
The light wasn't a beacon of hope—it offered no reprieve.
She had nowhere left to retreat; her back pressed against the unyielding stone wall. She'd scoured every corner of this labyrinth. Corpses carpeted every inch of the floor.
Only one path remained.
Her attacks had carved ventilation into the sealed maze, but the scant air did little for her exhausted body.
At best, it sharpened her mind slightly.
Before her loomed a dense horde of walkers, but she could glimpse their end.
Yet their numbers still crushed her spirit.
The ground was a nauseating tapestry of corpses, the fetid air thick with panic. It mirrored the dread she felt when controlled, forced to harm innocents.
That unstoppable iron fist had broken her heart.
Her feet sank into sticky gore, each movement draining her dwindling strength.
In this moment, she truly grasped the despair of those facing death at her hands.
Her arm, half-exposed bone, swung weakly. The axe in her palm bore tiny cracks.
"So this is what it feels like?"
Jessica's voice was faint, her body ravaged as walkers tore away chunks of flesh.
Her legs, now skeletal, bore jagged bite marks, like a poorly gnawed roast lamb, the muscle fibers grotesquely taut.
Her hips exposed pelvic bone; most flesh had fallen with the walkers to the ground.
Even her long hair was mostly gone, ripped out with patches of scalp.
She looked like a victim of severe alopecia.
"Come on!"
Jessica roared at the shambling walkers closing in, their movements hindered by the piled corpses.
Some stumbled, crushed under their kin, joining the carpet of remains.
The walkers were still numerous.
With a desperate swing, Jessica hurled her axe, but her weakened forearm—stripped of muscle—let it slip from her grasp!
At Harrogath's Sacred Mountain, Luke halfheartedly followed Maddock's training, his eyes glued to the projection above.
Jessica's plight seared into him, his body tensing.
Maddock watched silently, offering no nudge to focus.
"Ancestor Maddock, does she have a chance to come out alive?"
Luke's voice was nearly drowned by the wind.
"I don't know. Orak doesn't either. Only she knows if she can survive."
Maddock reached to offer Luke a bottle, but no stashed liquor remained here.
"You never talk in circles like that. So she's dying?"
Luke forced a smile, his voice heavy with defeat.
Bruce Wayne, observing the mountain's events, grew tense. Life shouldn't slip away so easily.
He wrestled with indecision.
On a nearby peak, Orak sat cross-legged, a fire before him roasting a beef leg.
Orak didn't favor Jessica Jones as his heir, even if Bulkathos entrusted her to him.
Watching a life fade in the realm still stirred loss in the war god.
"Do sinners deserve to live?"
Orak often muttered this, never quite grasping the answer.
After his death, he'd had endless time to ponder it, only growing more confused.
"What kind of sinner is she? One who willingly did evil and deserves death? Or one who bowed to darkness to survive?"
Banar, eyes bloodshot, stared at Orak.
"Cut it, Orak! People die. Why care about the reason? You, free of evil, still died—miserably. You think you deserved it?"
Banar bared sharp teeth, his crimson beard quivering with his words.
"Trials are like this. Recruits died in my realm too, and I never grieved."
Orak didn't turn to Banar, hunching to seem smaller.
"I don't get why you harp on what's done. Aren't you pals with Fate? He hasn't taught you to let go?"
Banar drew twin machetes, swinging them aimlessly.
"Fate watches silently, never meddling."
Orak spoke as if quoting, his voice low.
The words echoed Itherael, Archangel of Fate and Balance.
Itherael always sought solutions from neutrality.
He fought demons but never acted to change outcomes.
He never shared the Eternal Conflict's final result.
Like a puppet, solitary and taciturn.
"Does he really know everything? Like he foresaw Malthael's threat?"
Banar doubted Itherael's power.
Like a fortune-teller, if all could be changed, what was the point of prophecy?
If all was fated, speaking it was equally meaningless.
Banar didn't believe in fate—its value less than a common stone.
"Itherael doesn't understand humanity. He seeks balance."
Orak flipped the roasting beef leg, speaking offhand.
"To hell with archangels! Orak, just do what you want. Regret fighting Hamelin?"
Banar slashed his machetes at Orak's shoulders.
A screech of metal rang as Orak, wielding War God's Blade single-handedly, deflected the strikes to the ground.
"You won't sway me, just as I never sway you."
Orak stood, his massive frame engulfing Banar.
"But I can beat you!"
Orak's roar unleashed a shockwave, snuffing the fire and scattering snow, revealing countless recruit handaxes embedded in the rock.
Each axe marked a lost life.
Those recruits didn't die fighting demons but perished in his grueling realm.
"Come on!"
Banar's roar sprayed spittle as he charged Orak, defenseless.
Such fights were routine. They happened every time someone neared death in Orak's trial.
This debate had raged for centuries.
…
In a Hellsing Organization room, changes were unfolding.
"Serus Victoria, you're my child now."
Alucard flashed a sinister smile at the newly awakened Victoria.
Or rather, his smiles always carried a demonic, mad edge.
"What happened!?"
Victoria, just roused, struggled to recall events.
As a civilian diving into the supernatural, she'd been taken hostage by a vampire priest, then questioned by Alucard about her purity.
Her affirmative answer was met with a large-caliber shot through her chest.
"Shouldn't I be dead?"
Serus, naive as a schoolgirl, was hardly a competent officer.
Perhaps that innocence earned her new life under Alucard.
Even as a pure vampire, she showed no remarkable traits.
Maybe her beauty counted.
"Alucard, S.H.I.E.L.D. wants our help to eliminate vampires."
Integra, arm crossed, spoke coldly, her mockery clear.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control-everything attitude had long irked global organizations.
Hellsing was no exception.
"I obey your orders, Master."
Alucard left the dazed Serus, addressing Integra.
Their bond was complex, hard to define even for them.
Alucard's radiant smile accompanied a bow, red hat to his chest.
The floor's shadows opened crimson eyes, chilling the room instantly.
"Handle what's at hand. Those guys aren't worth much effort. We'll deploy you if needed."
Integra turned away, uninterested in Alucard's "daughter" training.
She trusted him completely. This visit was just to vent her mood.
Vampire incidents in Britain had surged, adding pressure.
As Hellsing's leader, she wouldn't rashly join S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fights.
She hoped they'd learn respect through setbacks—respect was the start of cooperation.
Coulson's visit was merely a first step, and Nick Fury's respect was never pleasant.
Hellsing wouldn't stand idle, but aid would come only when truly needed.
Alucard watched Integra leave, a red glint in his eyes.
Serus, probing her wound, shivered—she sensed something big was coming.
…
"This place is wrong. A door I can't kick down, a truck smeared with blood.
Even the faint stench screams caution.
Sin is everywhere; danger could strike anytime.
The smell isn't rotting corpses, but it reeks of evil, making me uneasy.
I don't know why, or what's being hidden. I haven't seen the truth."
The vagrant, curled on the bench, scribbled in a brown notebook.
He differed from typical vagrants, but his "Doomsday" sign masked the oddity.
Doomsday preachers seemed half-crazed. Who could truly know fate's path?
Even if someone could foresee the future, they wouldn't expose themselves.
He curled tightly, legs on the bench, knees hiding his notebook, making his writing subtle.
He'd spotted agents watching from afar, so he acted more like a typical vagrant.
"Act" might be off—he was a vagrant, just not ordinary.
A vagrant trying to break in for survival wasn't noteworthy.
But he couldn't budge that door.
The smithy initially felt like a beacon, but that pull shifted with Bulkathos's departure.
He realized the draw was Bulkathos himself.
Day one of observation: target confirmed.
The vagrant scanned the surroundings, then, with his scrawled "Doomsday" sign, headed back the way he came.
He carefully dodged the agents' sight, moving like a normal vagrant.
His steps carried tension.
Just a human with some skills, he couldn't ignore danger.
Caution and stealth were his survival.
The smithy's ground unsettled him, sparking anger.
Anger was familiar, but it birthed sorrow.
Now he'd follow that pull to find Bulkathos.
His recent changes—he felt Bulkathos held the answers.
He didn't know Bulkathos's name or what he represented.
But "never compromise," right?
Nothing but death would stop him.
(Chapter End)
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