Dragon's Dominion

Dense jungle sprawled out in every direction, a perpetual tide of dew drops catching on the tips of broad, dark green leaves. A warm humidity choked the atmosphere, and rushing water echoed from what seemed to be all directions, as though the mighty Amazon river refracted a siren call throughout the Peruvian rainforest. Nestled amidst a perimeter of clustered vegetation, an ostensibly abandoned, blocky warehouse was lined with alternating stripes of shadow and sunlight, where Earth’s star shone feebly through the shielding of interlocked treetops.

Within, metallic grinding sounds filled out the concrete box, a medley laced with the rattling of heavy industrial chains moving heavy cargo in dusty crates, and the hiss of hot steam bursts and whistling yellow sparks. A muggy, stifling factory floor was crowded with throngs of slave sweatshop workers, their sun-weathered tan skin providing no protection in this climate. Rows of chained natives were jam-packed about conveyor belts moving repurposed laundry baskets full of complex-looking robotics parts. Frayed wires poked out of silvery prosthetic limbs severed at the elbow, and gutted chassis plates weeped thick nuts and bolts. Inevitably, some of the smaller pieces would fall between the cracks of the baskets, rolling across the belt or tumbling wholesale to the floor. That usually netted a harsh reprimand from guttural foreign voices at best, and vicious barbed lashes at worst.

The assembly line was set in stages, from sorting refurbishable parts from worthless scrap, to matching usable parts, to the final assembly itself. At the threshold of a cargo bay docking area, a lift cart lowered a box of stolen cybernetics. A chrome helmet with jagged cheeks and insectile visor-like eyes vibrated atop the mound with the cart’s jarring movements. Calloused hands worked near to the bone pressed together to move the immensely heavy load onto a platform rigged to one of the cranes, whose necks curved, bird-like, amidst the upper rafters of the warehouse, where steel catwalks crisscrossed the upper level like suspended highways. From these vantage points, and jury-rigged observation boxes and overhanging decks, groups of harsh, thuggish men armed with assault rifles kept watch over the subjugated masses.

An elderly pale man in a lab coat carried a clipboard in front of him, almost like a shield to partition himself from the grievous human rights violations convention before him. His tired, jowled face looked severely out of place among the captured tribal native population, and the heavily armed gangland brutes and trigger happy mercenaries who herded them. He rested, clumsily, against a control panel, and heard a crane careen into a wall and spill its payload of metal pipes to the bare stone floor in a thunderous clatter. He shrank back, mortified under the panicked shouts and aggravated curses, then felt a rough hand grab him by the back of the collar.

The indentured cyberneticist was spun around to look into the deep, bloodshot eyes of a tanned man with a permanent scowl spread across his prematurely deep-lined face. He bared teeth and gums, like a predator giving an intimidation display, and the dark green irises of his glaring eyes seemed yellowish for a moment, almost reptilian and cold-blooded.

“Enjoying your downtime, doctor?” a condescending voice, dripping scorn, rumbled up out of that throat. A noticeably large adam’s apple bulged out of the man’s thickly corded neck. His dark hair, almost bluish, yet ash-dusted, was sharply distinctive, buzzcut at the sides, but with a gelled, pseudo-spiky mullet-like frill across the top of his head. A long, finely braided ponytail trailed from the back, waist-long when swept back and moving freely. Now, it rested over a thick shoulder, padded like a football player’s under a snappy white buttoned shirt with a popped collar. The garment was unbuttoned across the chest, revealing a thicket of dense, masculine carpet. He reeked of overpriced cologne, and the smell rose sharply in the aged doctor’s nostrils as he was shoved against the hard rail.

“My humble apologies.” the old man said through a dry throat. He had dropped his clipboard. When he bent over to reach for it, a heavy, steel-toed boot stamped his fingers, eliciting a harsh gasp of pain.

“This is my operation, and we’re running a tight schedule.” the imposing man said, locking eyes that never seemed to blink. “You break it, you buy it. Comprendes?”

He ground his boot into the man’s pinned hand before he stepped off, and sneered at him. Beige cargo pants met his dress shirt at a black leather belt with extraneous buckles, and a sash of high-caliber bullets were wrapped around his frame from left waist to and over his right shoulder. The machine gun these munitions fed was being cleaned at the moment, taken apart utterly, leaving the bandolier of rounds nothing more than a threatening fashion statement. Instead, a Glock was secured to a holster hugging the outside of his right leg by a thigh strap. His leathery palms and fingers were braced by gilded knuckle-dusters that were scuffed in places, and had faint tinges of red staining the interior of these cracks - dried blood, gathered over a decade as one of Death Roll’s premier bruisers.

“Pick up the pace, ladies, we’ve got deadlines to keep!” he bellowed out over the chamber.

From a shadowed corner amidst old stacks of cardboard boxes, an interloper had eyes on the illicit production. A young woman with a blond ponytail, hugged by a black catsuit, peered through a pair of binoculars with clinical blue eyes, as sharp and detached as her quarry’s own. Scanning the factory, she took in the sight of a cartel goon operating a bulky, plated exoskeleton suit, giving the powerful hydraulic limbs a test run as it lifted a junked car as easily as though it had been a stack of papers. Elsewhere, flocks of gangsters loaded test rounds into advanced-looking plasma rifles that seemed ripped straight out of 50s sci-fi. The woman lowered her binoculars and whispered into a concealed wrist-com, while she caressed the Protestant cross dangling from her choker with her other hand, giving a silent prayer for success.

“It’s Armistead. I’ve got eyes inside the warehouse. I’ve confirmed the location where the villagers are being held, and the shipment of pilfered tech. That tipoff was on the mark. The cartel’s made a nest here. Looks like they’re using the villagers as slave labor to mass-produce weapons reverse-engineered from the stolen cargo. I estimate at least a hundred high-ranking members are present, give or take some extra hired guns and native Judases. Their databanks say the first shipment is scheduled to ship out tomorrow, to an unidentified group entrenched in the middle east. And Lancer? Krokodil’s here.”

A darkened meeting room was divided into neat rows of folding chairs, with veteran soldiers still in their camo combat fatigues lining one side, and assorted agents in suits and formal office wear on the other. Their shared gaze was drawn to an illuminated slideshow at the front wall of the room, where a broad-shouldered black man with a strong jawline and a scattershot string of war medals strewn about his frame stood at a podium. At his side was a petite Chinese woman in a stylized blue qipao with ornate bamboo stalks and exotic birds decorating it. Her hands were laced behind her back, silken black hair cut just below the shoulders, as she stood at the ready for the Captain to give her her cue. First, he would speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this little meeting is now in session. Navy Seal head Terry Lancer presiding, for those of you new to our joint operation.” the huge man introduced himself. “Operative Mei-Liang here at my left is an informant representing the east Asian branch of Interpol, and has helped organize this alliance. Interpol and the US military will be working together closely in our mutual investigation of a violent and terroristic criminal organization. To cut right to the chase, our top priority target for capture is this strapping young man seen here, smuggling what we assume to be heroin through customs.”

Lancer thrust a pointer stick at the screen, where a low-quality still from airport security footage showed the man with the mullet and the cold eyes passing through a security checkpoint. “His name is Rolando Krokodil, and he’s a ghost for all intents and purposes, believed to be working as an enforcer for the Death Roll crime cartel; big time arms and drugs dealers, smugglers, and hired cutthroats with a well-earned reputation for ruthlessness. Their origins trace back to mafia families in Eastern Europe, but today most of their military might is concentrated in South America, where we believe Krokodil is overseeing a large-scale, highly illegal weapons production. Our scouts managed to pinpoint the site’s location to an abandoned warehouse deep in the Peruvian Amazon. A representative of the UK’s off-books White Cross Regiment, Bridget Armistead, transmitted info - including video footage - to us just twelve hours ago, confirming the cartel’s presence. Additionally, a large population belonging to the remote Rainbird tribe, whose village was raided by guerrilla rebels we now know to have been working for Death Roll, are being held captive as involuntary hands on the assembly line. Miss Mei, please tell us what we’re up against.”

Lancer saluted Mei-Liang, and the Interpol representative took the stage.

“We have precious little intel on Krokodil, because everyone who has gotten close to him is now dead. He’s cunning, unscrupulous, and exceedingly brutal, judging by the savaged corpses. He and his men are all to be considered extremely dangerous. Case in point, three weeks ago, a US-backed convoy transporting highly advanced experimental cybernetic prototypes was ambushed and raided. All personnel were killed. With the evidence we just received from operative Armistead, we can confirm without a doubt that this was a premeditated assault by Death Roll. How they knew about this transport, or what route to intercept, remains disturbingly unknown. What we do know is that an anonymous client has already placed an order for a shipment of replicated weapons to the Saudi Arabia border. Our mission is simple - surround the warehouse, subdue the cartel members, extricate the hostages, and block that shipment.”

Mei-Liang stepped aside, and Lancer took point again.

“We need to hit them fast and hard. Anything less than perfect coordination will all but ensure massive civilian casualties. We await operative Armistead to give the green light to move in, once her position is secure, and she has finished decrypting the complete layout of the base. Our third highest priority after the hostage rescue and taking custody of the stolen tech, is the capture of Krokodil. It would be ideal if we can take him alive for critical info on the cartel’s upper echelon, but he isn’t likely to make that easy for us. If it comes down to it, take him - dead or alive. Either way, do not let that man escape. By all accounts, he has a high intellect and a near eidetic memory. If he gets away, it’s almost as bad as the schematics themselves permanently falling into criminal hands.”

“So why are we waiting for a green light?” a man’s voice challenged Lancer.

Heads turned to a bulky man with a blond buzzcut and a stern expression. His biceps noticeably bulged, even amidst career soldiers and military elites.

“John Thratta, the most abrasive understudy in my squadron. My praise for holding your tongue this long.” Lancer said wryly.

“That message is fossil age by the timescale of this mission, for all we know, the spy and the hostages could be corpses by now. Every minute we wait twirling our thumbs puts more lives on the line, and gives Death Roll time to ship out. We need to hit them ASAP and be done with it.” he asserted.

“I understand your impatience, but don’t forget what you were taught in Seal camp. We’re a tactical unit. Not every battle is won with brute force. You charge in there, guns blazing, like a bull in a china shop, you put everyone’s lives on the line.” Lancer said.

“They’re on the line already. We don’t have time to wait for a full report. We have an ally alone in hostile territory. No man - or woman - left behind!” Thratta said.

The argument was kneecapped before it truly got started. Another transmission was coming in - the sounds of struggle, and a voice that was clearly Bridget’s, crying out amidst shouted orders and the thunder of mass gunfire. Shocked, worried faces shared glances, and Lancer shrugged, dropping his pointer stick.

“Alright. Fuck protocol.”

Bridget Armistead hung from the ceiling of a dark basement cell, her bruised, strained wrists clamped together by shackles attached to the ends of thick chains looped through the ceiling. Her feet were frustratingly close to the ground, enough for her toes to brush it. Those feet were bare and blue from the cold of the room. An air conditioner was on full blast, hitting her dead on. For an hour or so, it would have been a refreshing relief from the jungle heat conducting itself through the sweltering warehouse. Over the course of two days, interwoven with thorough torture sessions, it was just another ordeal to endure. Her lips were blue too, and her eyes were half-lidded as she shivered, semi-conscious. Her exposed body was covered in bruises and electric burns, and her lip was split. Another streak of blood still dribbled down from her hair line, running over her right eye.

Her transmissions back to base had been intercepted and jammed even as she spoke them, and she realized too late that her intrusion into the cartel encampment had not gone unnoticed. Far from it, the doors had been propped open for her, a proverbial red carpet laid out. Carelessly, the career infiltrator and assassin for the English Royal Family turned exported soldier for the joint investigation, took the bait. Krokodil had known days in advance that the authorities were sniffing around his territory, and that it was only a matter of time before someone came to poke the hornet’s nest. The moment Bridget had finished her info leak to Terry Lancer, Krokodil’s men, stalking the spy, made their presences known. She, to her credit, had heard the footfalls behind her, and gripped the cross hanging from her neck. Tugging the symbol of her faith, she pulled the crucifix an arm’s length out to reveal an attached, concealed steel garrote wire, knowing she didn’t have time to withdraw her firearms with enemies this close. The brief skirmish that had ensued was a noble, but futile effort. A shot in the thigh, and the butt of a rifle to the back of the head preluded her forty eight hours of torment at the hands of Krokodil’s direct subordinates.

Now, the man himself was ready to step up to the plate.

Bridget looked up, startled awake again, to the sound of the heavy metal door grating on the bare stone. Death Roll’s favored hitman and busy-body sauntered into the dark chamber, smirking like a cruel child with a bug trapped in a glass mason jar.

“Bridget Armistead, stalwart defender of the Church of England and her Royal Majesty. I’m almost disappointed. Then again, the art of assassination works best with the element of surprise, now doesn’t it love? Not so tough when someone else gets the drop on you, eh?” he strolled up to the bound Briton, circling her like a shark. The excited perspiration signifying his thinly-veiled eagerness to brutalize the intruder pierced through the musk of his heavy cologne, and even if it hadn’t, the cold knife edge in his voice still came through the almost-charming, friendly way he talked all too clearly.

“Interpol and Seal Team Six are on the way. You won’t get far.” Bridget defied her captor, refusing to let a quiver seep into her voice.

“Oh, I’m counting on it. There’s going to be a hell of a party when your entourage gets here. You see, that report you thought you sent got jammed by my boys before it even began. I delayed your transmission, and broke it into two parts. The first was your report itself, which I sent back to them manually two days ago, right after you became our guest. Part two got released a few hours ago, well after the weapons have already been shipped out, and the hostages moved into the human trafficking circuit. All Captain Lancer, and Agent Mei-Liang are going to find when they get here is a cleared out concrete box, my men waiting, armed to the teeth, and you broken like a pretty little doll.” Krokodil intoned sinisterly.

He gripped Bridget roughly by the chin and yanked her face toward him, locking cold eyes with hers. “You’d still have ended up another notch in my gun post-mortem, but had you tried sniping me from your vantage point instead of wasting time playing right into my designs, you might have managed to take my bounty off the market before the boys wasted you. Now though, all you’ve managed to accomplish is drag the rest of your team to Hell with you. It’s going to be a hell of a party.”

Bridget spat in Krokodil’s eye, then kicked him in the crotch. The man’s face soured, and Bridget heard a stifled grunt rattle in his throat before his poker face cracked, and he winced. He released her jaw and turned around, staggering and clutching at his swollen balls. He turned around again after regaining his composure, gave another cocky grin, and waggled his finger at Bridget, as though chiding a disobedient child.

“I thought you British were supposed to know your manners?” Krokodil chuckled.

Then he clutched a brass knuckled fist and slammed a full-body haymaker into Bridget’s exposed solar plexus. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her, and she was sent swinging wildly back and forth on her chain by the force of the blow. She coughed and heaved, splashing vomit and bile onto the ground, and disgustingly over her own body.

“Now you fucking behave yourself, little girl, if you don’t want me to take a big bite out of your cunting face!” Krokodil growled.

His phone rang, and he answered it. Upon flipping the brick phone closed and pocketing it, he looked back up at the injured and exhausted Bridget. “Your friends are here, right on time. I do love punctual guests. We’ll get to know each other better afterwards.”

Krokodil loaded his glock and cocked it theatrically in front of Bridget. “Do me a favor and wait right there for me, yeah?”

He lingered at the door on his way out, and turned around to unveil the bitter rage and hatred bubbling just under the surface. “And Armistead? From one professional killer to another - au revoir.”

The metal door slammed.

Captain Terry Lancer took point on the initial formation, he and his other war buddies soaped up in their standard issue combat fatigues and bulletproof vests, bowl-like helmets strapped tight over their heads. They were packing lightly this time around as far as luggage went. No two hundred pound backpacks, or in Lancer’s personal workout regime, nautical anchors, slung across the back today. As far as packing heat, each man had with him an assault rifle, machine gun, and machine pistol, at a minimum. As with many of their predecessors, special note to the Mexican cartels, Death Roll had weaponry that matched and even surpassed those of law enforcement’s. Many of the mercs on Krokodil’s payroll had even been ex special ops, and knew their way around heavy arms better than the cops Peru could spare to send after them did, all the way out here in the uncharted wilderness. The laser scope on Lancer’s rifle, butt braced reassuringly in the crux of his shoulder, was switched off for the time being. Although the facility seemed abandoned, Lancer wasn’t in any hurry to let a pretty red light alert enemies lying in wait to their presence, especially now that one of their own under Lancer’s responsibility was counted among the hostages.

But this was strange - where were the hostages? This place should have been bustling. The conveyor belts were all still and cold, and the place seemed hauntingly empty. The echoes of footfalls under the soldiers’ tread was much too loud. Something was wrong.

“Stay sharp, troops.” Lancer whispered over his shoulder.

The assault team had divided into waves, spreading out and canvasing the warehouse at every cardinal direction, barring the south entrance they had come in through. The doors had been unbarred too. It had seemed strange at the time, and now, coupled with the eerie silence, it was enough to make a hardened soldier verge on paranoia. But, Lancer didn’t crack easily. He resolved to remain vigilant, and keep his cool. No firing at shadows.

Mei-Liang’s team had split off from Lancer’s, taking the east wing. Interpol field scouts passed through a maze of extensive iron pipes and furnaces, cutting deeply into the belly of some long-disused boiler room space. The sooty smell of still ash and char blanketed the place, and condensation dripping from bends in the upper pipes, or through weathered gaps in the crappy tin plating of the roof echoed, making a rhythm that sounded almost like the room had its own pulse.

Elsewhere, Thratta was dissatisfied with bringing up the rear, and aggressively cut through the center rank, shoving his way forward into the limelight. He didn’t graduate boot camp top of his class to get remanded to this cloak and dagger timidity. Stifling protesting grunts with a hardened glare, he cocked his rifle and stepped out into the open. From the looks of it, Death Roll had cleared out some time ago, and that meant that Bridget had either been dragged along with them, managed to escape, or was a moldering corpse. Thratta’s personal priority was to recover his MIA comrade, above all else. When the blond agent had first been remanded to the Military-Interpol alliance, Thratta had thought she was rather cold and distant, and bitchy when she finally opted to speak, communicating only in terse, high-strung spurts as strictly necessary. The type who didn’t socialize much. That made sense, if the rumors amidst the brass were accurate, that she was part of some war cult bred by the church for the royal family’s personal use as bodyguards and assassins. That kind of upbringing didn’t exactly foster pro-social attitudes.

Thratta shrugged.

It’s all bullshit anyway. he dismissed the idea.

Regardless of whatever she may or may not be, operative Armistead was part of his outfit now, and he stood by what he said - no one got left behind. Ever since he had been a little boy excitedly unwrapping his Christmas gifts of army men action figures and miniature tanks, he had resolutely known he wanted to be a soldier. An anomaly in an era that was becoming increasingly conscious of its often duplicitous militaristic nature and entire catacombs of dirty laundry, John Thratta was the starry-eyed boy scout idealist who would have been better suited for service fighting Nazis in WWII than being part of the American armed forces in a time when their global involvement in the affairs of others was dubious at best. His incredible physical abilities, off the charts even by the standards of the Navy Seals, and great aptitude notwithstanding, it had been that single-note naivety about the fledgling soldier that worried his CO, the decorated Terry Lancer.

A young and up and coming Thratta, straight out of high school and with a skip in his step, never faltered from the grueling path toward his dream job. He weathered the rain, the drowning simulations, the back-breaking heavy lifting, and could put a hole between the eyes of a soaring falcon at a hundred yards if Lancer had to call it. But his bullheadedness was unbecoming an outfit that had to rely more often than not on covert action. Despite the recommendations backing Thratta’s advancement, Lancer had been reluctant to take him along. He liked the boy well enough, but this wasn’t the time or place to gamble on a hothead.

Lancer’s reservations were vindicated shortly, when Thratta strutted full-view into the sights of a bazooka-totting Death Roll thug, pressed against his belly on a high catwalk. That would have been the end of John Thratta’s military career right then and there, had Mei-Liang’s group not converged on his at that exact moment. The woman’s highly-attuned ears, accustomed to rouse her from deep slumber at the drop of a pin, caught the whistle of the flying rocket propelled grenade, and her lightning reflexes quick-drew a pistol to return fire before the explosive could cross half the distance to blow her comrades to chunks. A bullet birthed itself from the womb of muzzle flare, and struck the missile right out of the air. It exploded between the sender, and Thratta, and the roaring boom floored the front lines of everyone within the deafening radius.

The other goons lying in wait about the catwalks and hidden nooks and crannies heard the proverbial school bell, and launched their ambush. A storm of bullets tore through the ranks, and Lancer called a fall back to find cover behind the corners and crates. There was a moment of shock in his voice - no operation he’d been part of had ever gone FUBAR quite this quickly.

Where Thratta was, the man had fallen to his knees, and his ringing ears dizzied him as he tried to squint through the gunsmoke hanging in the air. A crowd of gunmen wearing the cold-as-ice expressions of seasoned murderous scumbags had popped out of the woodwork, training their sights on the team of opposing soldiers. At their backs, some distance so that he was shadowed under a stationary moving platform held aloft by rope and pulley, Krokodil chuckled, arms folded.

“Cook ’em, boys.” the enforcer gave his blessing.

“Fuck!” Thratta cursed, dodge-rolling behind a load-bearing column and under the belly of deactivated machinery. His men followed his lead and took partial cover, leaving themselves only exposed enough to return fire, save for those who were too slow on the draw - the men who had been up in front with Thratta, some tugging him to fall back in line, dropped as bullets riddled their chests.

Gunfire was echoing all throughout the warehouse, and the reverb made it difficult to tell exactly how many different skirmishes were occurring. It made little difference, as any pretense at strategic positions or formations shattered like sugar glass in record time under the sucker punch of Death Roll’s pincer attack. Lancer bobbed and weaved between the trajectories of the glocks and rifles pointed his way, gambling his life on estimating where the bullets would go before the punks could pull the triggers. A sea of faces stared back at him, mixed race Asian, white, and black - there was no small-minded segregation or racial elitism amidst the Death Roll, or traditional favoritism toward their own blood as with the Italian Mob - but predominantly Hispanic, given the foothold the cutthroat clan had found in this continent in recent years.

Krokodil’s ancestry itself was a subject of mystery, as everything else about the man - his skin tone and vague accent - suggested Latino origin, but several aspects of his facial structure seemed markedly European. One of the many theories the brass had tossed about was that Krokodil was actually the ill-fated and illegitimate son of the cartel’s previous Don, old money from Russia, with a Cuban concubine during covert business to be had in the midst of the Cold War. No one even amidst the cartel itself - at least those directly under Krokodil - knew his origins either; and those that dug too deep and did find any background on him turned up in body bags.

Well, survive this, Lancer thought, and there’ll be all the time in the world to question the little weasel. You picked the wrong unit to declare war on, syndicate scum!

He returned fire with a protracted, primal war cry.

On both sides, men were dropping like flies. A few lucky shots nailed a Vietnamese cartel member perched in the rafters, and he plunged with a pained cry to the hard concrete headfirst, clutching at his chest as it blossomed a red flower. One of Mei-Liang’s suited associates winced at the sound of the man’s neck breaking sharply at a right angle. His distraction cost him his life when a sawed-off shotgun burst from behind blasted into the small of his back, and the hot flak exited out his front above the waist, taking shreds of his intestines with them. He doubled over, gurgling. Mei-Liang swiftly took the dying man’s dropped gun - the more firepower she had on her, the safer she felt - and ducked around a corner.

A smattering of cartel thugs crouch-sprinted to the juncture where the Chinese agent had retreated, and cautiously peaked around the corner. The hall was empty. Mei-Liang had taken the high ground, to take the fight to the snipers still hiding up there. She blindsided a crouched English merc, putting a bullet right through his eye, and shielded herself in the crux of his belly as he slumped over, switching to her armor piercing rounds and firing straight through her deceased human shield’s gut to take down his backup, spread out at left and right in a v.

Thratta heard the rattle of Mei-Liang shots from below, and put his boot camp fitness to use, army crawling through a narrow passage in the works’ undercarriage, emerging on the other side of a great series of looming iron platforms. He aimed a shot at a goon straddling the corner, his back to Thratta. An anticlimactic click alerted the thug to Thratta’s position - the pistol had been jammed now, of all times, thanks to the oily industrial sludge it and its master had been made to crawl through. Undeterred, Thratta simply threw the gun at the pale-faced grunt, and sprinted behind its arc. The butt of the gun struck the cartel goon straight in the face, breaking his nose and forcing his eyes squeezed closed in pain. Thratta soared on the improvised throwing weapon’s tail, landing a muay thai flying knee strike that crushed the man’s skull against the girder-like legs of the platform.

Thratta’s combatives training had incorporated the deadliest and most effective elements of muay thai, taekwondo, kickboxing, wrestling, aikido, judo, kenpo, and, as a recent addition to his routine exercises, a few swift and brutal takedown maneuvers borrowed from the emergent krav maga system gaining traction in Israel. Combined with his bulk - both the poster child quarterback’s frame he had naturally developed, and the mountain of dense muscle he had packed onto it since then with routine weight lifting competitions and some boxing turneys on the side - his combo platter of martial arts skill and natural reflexes made him a human wrecking ball of pain. He had organic guns to match his Navy-issued guns, and the fighter’s instinct to match his sharpshooter eagle’s eye.

Both skillsets worked in tandem as he swiped a machine gun from his fallen enemy, and wielded it offhandedly in his south paw as though it were a light children’s toy. The kickback as he belted out rapid fire from its muzzle barely swayed his unsupported wrist, even as his right hand worked separately to fire off machine pistol shots at some stragglers trying to sneak up on him. Lost in the adrenaline rush berserker daze of open warfare, he came back to his senses when his aim fell on Mei-Liang, still straddling the upper levels.

“Cover me!” he called, popping a fresh clip into the salvaged machine gun, and chucking it effortlessly up into Mei-Liang’s grasp.

“Where’d you learn gun safety?!” she snapped back down at him incredulously - but he was already gone, tearing into more unwitting throngs of outmatched mooks like tissue paper.

As if reflecting Thratta’s kill streak and unbroken stride through enemy ranks, deeper into the heart of the facility, Terry Lancer shrugged off the dry click of his now emptied guns, dropped them, and spun chaotically toward one of four or five remaining gangsters between him and a steel staircase leading off the factory floor, to where he had seen Krokodil slink off. Feeling bullets whizzing past him, he unclipped a hunting knife from his waist belt, and tossed it underhand, spinning. It lodged itself in an angel-faced mook’s throat, dropping him. Lancer gratefully accepted the shotgun the stuck goon would no longer be using, and cut loose peppering the remaining mercs.

They didn’t know what hit them.

While the protracted firefight raged outside her cell, Bridget was engaged in a battle of her own as she worked to free herself. She had managed to gain enough momentum kicking back and forth as though she were on a swing - Krokodil rocking her across the entire length of the chain like a dog choked out on a leash having given her the idea - to twist the chain, and grip the end where it connected to her handcuffs. Straining with a held breath, she pulled herself into first a stomach crunch, and then a complete inversion so that her feet were planted on the ceiling. Her captors had been so busy making sure she couldn’t reach the floor that they didn’t check to see if she could reach its opposite. More likely, they hadn’t bothered. The proverbial leash was secured to a welded base.

Bridget felt her ponytail hang freely as she held herself upside down, and hugged the chain with her thighs to inch-worm higher up until her feet were planted firmly on the ceiling, and she had enough slack to clutch so as to prevent herself slipping back to where she started. She was pulling an inverted squat, thigh muscles bulging as she strained and pulled. The connector the chain was affixed to may have been nigh-unbreakable, but the plaster ceiling wasn’t. Another grenade explosion somewhere in the distance sounded like a victory drum as she ripped the metal free of the ceiling, pulling out dusty chunks and dropping herself painfully onto her back. She stifled the ache, turned her face away from the continually snowing dust, and forced herself to stand. She regurgitated a hairpin - a little trick that had made her sisters in arms squeamish since she first came up with that solution to unexpected friskings - and set to work picking the locks of her bound wrists. The cuffs came undone with satisfying clicks, and she carried the loose chains along with her as she repeated her deft security work on the cell door.

The guard immediately outside Bridget’s holding room had been too keen on listening to the fight above the stairs to hear the special agent break loose, and he didn’t realize the error of his ways until the chain was already looped about his neck and twisting, choking him silent. The arms that would have pulled his piece free to fight back were pinned to his sides as Bridget wrapped her powerful legs around them, they and the chain working in tandem to crush the goon, as though the White Cross veteran were a constrictor snake. She nodded aggressively as she heard the man’s windpipe crush in, then dropped off of him and drove his face into the stone floor with an ax kick for good measure, caving his face in. She took his gun, but opted not to use it yet, lest she alert unnecessary backup to her escape. The next would-be guard she saw, she whipped in the face with the heavy chain, breaking the skin open vertically in half and concussing him. She lassoed the chain around his body too, binding him helplessly and pickpocketing his gun, before lifting him off his feet and slamming her forehead into his already bleeding face.

Lights out.

Soon enough, she had reached the storage room where a wooden chest was locked at the latch, and she didn’t need any special intuition to tell her that this was where her confiscated gear had been deposited. She broke the chest open with another heel kick and took back her suit, pausing a moment to slash it open into strips she tore off below the chest at the belly. She had worked up a sweat, and a crop top seemed better for the occasion, now that her outfit was already ruined by Krokodil’s grubby hands anyway. She clutched her fist as she pulled elbow-high crimson combat gloves over her arms, and snapped a few practice punches that sang as they cut through the air.

Suited up, and in possession once more of her garrote wire, she knelt long enough to clasp her hands and usher a prayer.

“Heavenly father, please forgive me, for I have sinned - and I’m not slowing down anytime soon.” she added.

Being a covert church militant, Bridget was resigned to her role as necessary evil, to smite the enemies of crown and country as the royal family’s sword and shield. All the same, the prayer was customary, and it was a point of both faith and professional pride that she commit the details and faces of every kill to memory. After all, she half-expected to see them again in Hell.

Shoving that grim thought to the back of her mind expertly once again, she stood her full height and cracked out her knuckles.

“It’s good to be back.” she said to herself.

Terry Lancer had a disarmed goon by the hair, and smashed his face into an offhand knee, then lifted him and rushed down the last two guys standing in his way. If the poor sap wasn’t dead already when Lancer crushed his face, he certainly was when the limp body soaked up rapid pistol rounds. Lancer threw the corpse into the shooter to his right, throwing it with enough force that it slammed the man into the wall and knocked him senseless long enough for Lancer to deflect the muzzle of the remaining thug’s rifle with his outer forearm and shove the mouth of his pistol under the guy’s chin. Lancer fired, and the bullet exploded out the top of the grunt’s skull.

“This sector is secured as fuck.” Lancer spat to the ground.

He heard the groaning of the live thug he had bodied with his own teammate. With an annoyed sigh, Lancer marched over to the floored gangster and stomped on his face. The groans stopped.

“Now, where did you run off too, you slippery- ack!” Lancer grunted as a bullet hit him in the back, just under the shoulder blade where a wide open chink in his bulletproof vest’s armor was. Another shot glanced off of his helmet, missing his exposed face by a fraction of a second as he fell onto his tailbone.

“Right here, gent.” Krokodil whistled, twirling his Glock.

Pound for pound, the joint investigation assault team’s numbers had taken far fewer casualties than the comparatively naked Death Roll personnel, ambush notwithstanding. A few took it upon themselves to cover the wounded and drag them to safe hiding spots, while the untouched remainder regrouped. A moving line of assault rifle fire mowed down the cartel stragglers caught between the split parties.

A goon who was all too sure he took a hit in the lung was wheezing and gasping rapidly as he stumbled for cover in the back hallways. Instead, he ran into Bridget, who flipped her ponytail into his face with such inhuman finesse that her joined strands of hair acted as a whip to the eyes. The grunt shrieked, clutching at his eyes, and Bridget lodged a spear hand strike directly in the center of his throat. The cut-off choking sound grated on her ears, so she straddled behind the cutthroat, grabbed him roughly by the temple with one hand, and the underside of the jaw with the other, and snapped his neck like a fortune cookie.

She was in a bad mood.

Krokodil ducked into a control room when Mei-Liang ushered in backup to assist Lancer. There, he cut off a flock of hired guns trying to beat a quiet retreat.

“Leaving so soon?” Krokodil questioned them.

“We didn’t sign up for this!” a wounded man, clutching his shoulder where a bullet had shattered the bone and fragmented inside, practically spat in Krokodil’s face.

The cartel enforcer held his chin as if thinking, nodded, and then yanked the man’s head back by the hair, thrust his face into the crux, and sank his teeth into the man’s throat. He ripped out the deserter’s jugular and windpipe together, leaving a spurting gush of blood to paint the room, and his dress shirt.

“Just got this thing washed.” Krokodil tugged on his reddened popped collar. He looked up at the remaining men. “Any other complaints you want to drop in the suggestion box?”

They busted out the remaining ranged explosives - now was an emergency if ever there was one - and made their final stand. Krokodil, for his part, smashed the mainframe to trash all records of their doings here, and gathered together what few things he would need to take with him after they abandoned this crude warehouse. He armed the portable detonator linked to the facility’s self-destruct feature he had personally and covertly installed well before he brought in his staff, and pocketed the device. If it came to it, he would vacate the premises and set off the fireworks with the investigation team still trapped inside - along with his remaining men.

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” Krokodil grumbled.

He looked up to see Lancer’s laser scope sighted on him. He balked and dove to the side right before rifle fire pushed through the observation window.

“Persistent.” Krokodil hissed, and clutched at his gun.

In the storm of explosions and final clips that expended themselves, the chaos worked out so that John Thratta, perchance, was the only one behind the line in the sand when Krokodil straddled the threshold to the catwalks above.

“It’s over, Krokodil!” Thratta boomed at the enforcer, training his pistol - the last weapon and with the last ammo he had - on him.

Krokodil answered by rapidfire emptying his glock at Thratta, who, shouldered behind a beam, emptied his pistol in turn. Miraculously, neither one of them managed to land a shot.

Krokodil recoiled, throwing a vengeful snarl Thratta’s way, and ran for the ladder.

Oh no you don’t. Thratta thought. We settle this with fists.

“Thratta!” Mei-Liang yelled after the Navy Seal as he gave chase.

“Krokodil’s getting away! No time to argue!” he called over his shoulder, racing up the iron steps.

Krokodil was scrambling up a ladder to the catwalks when Thratta caught up to him halfway up the ladder, and snagged an ankle. “Get down here, Krokodil!”

The career hitman grunted and strained on the rungs, his face turning red as he struggled to free himself.

“Will you just piss off?!” Krokodil snapped, and slid down the ladder with both boot-clad feet planted in Thratta’s face. The blindsided soldier was thrown off the ladder and landed hard on his back, knocking him breathless. He regained his wits in time to see a flashbang falling toward him.

“Shit!” he rolled over onto his belly and crouched, covering his ears and face.

A white boom engulfed him, and he felt like his eardrums had almost burst. When the echo faded away, he drunkenly stumbled to his feet, and climbed up the ladder into the web of catwalks, still dizzied. His bleary vision made him feel like he was walking off-balance. As normal colors and lighting returned to him, he swayed his head back and forth.

Where was Krokodil?

The answer came with a smash to the side of his face from behind, as the brute pistol-whipped him upside the head so hard that the strap of his helmet was torn loose, and the headgear went flying right off, crashing below to the floor.

Krokodil lunged, and Thratta shook the daze out of his eyes to retaliate, snatched Krokodil by the wrist and twisting, his other hand yanking the gangster by the collar. They spun, stumbling for a foothold, across the catwalk, and Thratta found purchase with the wider stance, using his bulk to slam Krokodil into the rail. The enforcer’s hand was crushed against the rail, forcing him to drop the spent gun to the ground level. Thratta crossed his arm across Krokodil’s chest, and drove the point of his elbow into the brute’s face repeatedly. The smaller, wiry man twisted like a weasel, ripping free of the collar hold, and thrust the top of his head into Thratta’s face, stumbling the Seal and creating some distance between them. They boxed wildly, and a throat punch, offset by the recurring tinnitus Krokodl’s flashbang had invoked, grazed the side of the brute’s neck. He gagged and stumbled forward, swinging wide, clumsy punches at the soldier until his throat cleared up, and he regained his wits. They exchanged swift volleys of punches, Krokodil aiming to stay just outside of Thratta’s range so he could capitalize on missed strikes, in classic outboxer fashion. He leveled a brass knuckled punch at Thratta’s incoming fist, and the soldier grunted as his knuckle was busted and bled.

As Krokodil closed in to start doing heavier damage, Thratta closed the gap by grappling him again instead, trying to leverage a joint-locked arm. Krokodil slid out of the would be hold, and barreled into Thratta, tangling the combatants into each other again until Krokodil had managed to get a hammerlock, wrenching Thratta’s arm back over his shoulder. He kicked the back of Thratta’s knee, pushing him off balance, then started sledging his kneecap up into Thratta’s face over and over again. He finished by releasing the hold and jumping up with an elbow outstretched, which he slammed into the base of Thratta’s neck on the return stroke.

The lithe brawler underestimated Thratta’s durability, and paid for it by eating a backfist to the teeth. He stumbled back drunkenly, and threw another arm out, punchdrunk, managing only to get grabbed by Thratta again. The Seal performed a karate shoulder throw, and Krokodil was planted on his back, only just rolling out of the way before an army boot stomped where his head had been. Krokodil backslid a few paces and flipped a butterfly knife into his grip, giving a mocking whistle.

“Getting interesting now, eh, sailor?”

Krokodil initiated a few feints, then started wildly slashing, flourishing, and thrusting. A swipe cut one of the suspended straps of Thratta’s combat fatigues, and the return stroke, held in a sudden reverse grip, carved a shallow cut across the bigger man’s chest. Instead of hesitating, Thratta rushed Krokodil, and chopped at his inner elbow, pinpoint-striking Krokodil’s funny bone and numbing his entire arm in an instant. He wrenched Krokodil’s wrist, and the knife clattered to the floor. Reflexively, Krokodil dropped to all fours to retrieve his knife, and Thratta stomped on his seeking hand, pinning it. Krokodil tried to free himself by punching Thratta in the crotch, and was rewarded with a hard boot in the face as Thratta football kicked him.

The thug was practically thrown back onto his feet, and against the rail again.

As they scrapped, Thratta got the growing sense that he was trading blows with an imposter, as though Krokodil had only been incompletely trained in hand to hand combat, and had filled in the gaps with tricks he picked up from experience over time, improvised and concealed weapons and tactics, and cunning ferocity. Krokodil was used to the enemy dropping dead before they ever touched him. Thratta knew that was no cause to underestimate him, though - he was throwing hands with a cornered rat. It was hard to land solid hits on the crafty bastard too. His movements were alternatingly subtle and erratic, and punches and kicks seemed to slide off of him. Bearing this in mind, Thratta drove Krokodil into a corner against the far rail where the catwalk forked at a right angle, and went all in pummeling him. He punished Krokodil’s stomach with a volley of body blows in between slamming his head from hook punch to hook punch. He planted a heel kick in Krokodil’s chest and felt satisfied at eliciting a compressed wheezing noise from the cutthroat, then closed out their opening skirmish with a roundhouse kick to the face that flipped Krokodil up and over the rail, falling like a rag doll to the ground. The thug landed by the small of his back on a wooden crate’s edge, partially crushing the container as he flipped over again, landing on his knees.

That hurt him. Thratta talked himself up, taking a few moments of pride and satisfaction in having overwhelmed and thrashed one of Death Roll’s heavies. He descended to the ground floor after Krokodil, repelling down a chain dangling a few feet off from the catwalk.

On the open floor again, Thratta roughly picked the crawling, winded Krokodil up by the back of his shirt and belt, and tossed him against a pillar. He rushed him down to start pummeling him with boxing combos again, and took a retaliatory uppercut in the stomach that doubled him over. Krokodil took advantage by grabbing Thratta by the back of his head with both hands and mashing the soldier’s face into the pillar. Thratta cried out, and Krokodil kicked him in the underbelly as Thratta propped himself up against the pillar. Wrenching him away from the support and shoving him a yard across the stone ground, Krokodil lunged at Thratta again, throwing a roundhouse kick. Thratta, the superior martial artist, retook advantage again by catching Thratta’s leg in both tree trunk arms, and sweeping Krokodil’s standing leg. Engaging his immense brute strength, Thratta swung Krokodil by his leg and let go, soaring Krokodil into a rack of power tools that collapsed loudly.

As Krokodil got to his feet, he noticed a multitude of buzzsaws that had fallen off their hooks. Twirling them about his fingers by the holes in their center, Krokodil sailed several buzzsaws at Thratta in quick succession, like giant shuriken. Thratta bobbed and weaved through the arcing serrated wheels, caught one by its vicious teeth in a pinching maneuver with his fingers, spun for added momentum, and returned fire. Krokodil ducked behind a metal beam and grimaced as he saw the round blade embed itself in the column.

“Take a hint and just drop dead already!” Krokodil growled.

He tore away and fled deeper into the jungle of iron and stone, hiding amidst a sea of big boxes and crates. Thratta pursued and whirled toward the sound of a loud crash. It was a glass bottle, thrown and broken against a far wall. A diversion.

Krokodil dropped toward Thratta with both elbows pistoning down at once, sledging their points into the top of the soldier’s skull. Thratta swayed drunkenly, vision gray, and was yanked roughly by the collar into a vicious headbutt that broke his nose in, gushing blood. Krokodil somersaulted over Thratta, grabbing him by the belt, and power-lifted the Seal up and over his head with the momentum, slamming him into the ground. As the dazed Thratta tried to scramble to his feet, he was unsuccessful for how disoriented he was after three consecutive blows to the head. A fourth was added when Krokodil kicked him in the face, crippling another attempt to stand. Not finished, Krokodil kicked Thratta in the gut too when the soldier presented it as an easy target mid-crouch. Thratta curled into an agonized ball as the wind was knocked out of him. Krokodil stomped on Thratta’s back and drove him back into the ground, straddled him, and hooked an arm under the soldier’s thick neck, trying to crush his throat in a merciless chokehold.

Thratta found his strength again, and pushed himself back onto his feet, lifting Krokodil with him, and threw himself backward into a wall. Krokodil felt Thratta’s bulk crush him against the stone, but answered by closing the vice of his arm even tighter. Thratta rapidly slammed the wall with Krokodil twice more, and finally the gangster was dislodged, stumbling drunkenly against that same wall for support. Thratta, with a war cry, dropped his shoulder low and sprinted to ram Krokodil. The enforcer stumbled out of the way, and there was a sickening crunch as the impact dislocated Thratta’s lead shoulder.

Krokodil took notice, and rushed Thratta down, pelting him with blows. Thratta ducked, protecting his face, neck, and chest, and threw a haymaker with his good arm, whirling Krokodil back.

Fuck this! Krokodil thought.

He ran for a weapons rack and retrieved a rocket launcher. Thratta was upon him before he could take aim, and they were struggling for the weapon. Thratta slammed his head into Krokodil’s, unable to use his dislocated arm or take his remaining arm away from the wrestled rocket launcher, and Krokodil in turn stomped his foot and yanked the butt of the rocket launcher into Thratta’s face. Then, someone squeezed the trigger on accident, and the rocket went wild. A flash of heat accompanied by a brutal, thunderous shockwave threw the combatants apart and away from each other. Thratta had been nearest the blast radius, inadvertently shielding Krokodil with his body, which was wrapped in flame and thrown against a pillar back-first. Krokodil was tossed safely into a tall stack of cardboard boxes.

Mei-Liang had just subdued a mook with a flip kick, and pressed him down with her heel in his chest and her pistol aimed at his head when they heard the explosion. Lancer knocked a thug unconscious by swinging his rifle like a club, and looked up at the sound. The rest of the team had killed or disabled the remaining cartel members, and kicked them into position to handcuff them, the thugs having laid down their arms but for one hiding in the rafters. Before he could take aim at Lancer’s head, however, Bridget’s garrote wire snared around his neck like a steel noose, pulled taut, and yanked him backward off his perch. A few pained grunts drifted out of the darkness, and then Bridget emerged, wiping blood from her wire.

“You’re alright.” Lancer nodded, surprised and relieved that the operative hadn’t been executed.

“More or less. That explosion - let’s check it out.” Bridget answered.

“We’ve got this, you go on ahead.” Mei-Liang said to Thratta as she knocked out the subdued gunman with a kick to the head.

Lancer nodded, and paired off with the self-extricated Bridget to find Thratta - and Krokodil.

Thratta woke up coughing, his face plastered with ash, and his body aching all over as if he had torn his muscles. He winced as he tried to prop himself up, and his back screamed at him. His rotator cuff was torn too, but the explosion and subsequent impact had popped his shoulder back into place. Nevertheless, his eyes widened at the sight of a piece of metal shrapnel buried in his left side above the waist.

“Fuck!” he hissed, clutching at his ballistics wound.

Pain exploded in the side of his head too, suddenly, as Krokodil - back on his feet - swung a crowbar against Thratta’s skull. The soldier was laid out on his back again, and Krokodil rained vicious blows on him, growling and frothing at the mouth in his frenzied assault like a wild animal.

"Die! Die, you pig! Just die! Die, motherfucker! Goddamn Navy fuck!" Krokodil punctuated his swings with the beats of his profane rant.

With both arms functioning again, Thratta threw his arm with the busted knuckles - the one that had already directly clashed with Krokodil’s guarded fist - into a blow against the crowbar itself, knocking it back into Krokodil’s own face. They both screamed as the bludgeon clattered to the side. Krokodil dug his knees into Thratta’s chest and began strangling the soldier in a two-handled throttle with all his strength, digging his thumbs into Thratta’s throat. Thratta grabbed Krokodil’s arms, trying and falling to pry the gangster off of him. A frantic swing saw part of his hand disappear into Krokodil’s mouth, who savagely bit down hard enough to break skin and splinter the thumb bone. Krokodil released his bite and slammed his head into Thratta’s again, nearly knocking him out, and intensified his strangle. Thratta had a moment of clarity right before he would have passed out, and dug his fingertips into the space between Krokodil’s wrist bones like a human hole punch. Krokodil screamed as his hands were forced to spasm open, and Thratta finally threw him off. The soldier, still gasping, tackled Krokodil against a pillar, and threw frantic, wild punches. They had both degenerated into throwing all the brute force they had behind each and every hit. Krokodil had sudden clarity, and sank an elbow into the end of the shrapnel sticking out of Thratta’s torso.

Thratta gasped and stumbled backward, doubling over. Krokodil pressed him, rapidly alternating hook punches to the sides of the head with his brass knuckles. He finished with a vicious uppercut that tore the flesh of Thratta’s chin open and rocked his head back. Krokodil planted a front kick in Thratta’s chest, throwing him against another pillar, slumping and bleeding heavily.

Krokodil caught his breath and popped his collar, then spat out blood to the side.

“Marvelous, no less than I’d expect from the best of the best! But this was far too close a call for my liking.” Krokodil roared, pausing momentarily to clutch broken ribs with a pained hiss before looking back up at his prey. “I’m going to make you suffer, just like the English bitch!”

Thratta pulled himself up against the pillar and shook out his head. He grit his teeth with a locked jaw, and felt one of them dislodged from his gums by the pressure, and fall to the ground. His tongue licked the fresh gap between his remaining teeth. The taste of iron, and the feel of the knuckle prints in his face rallied his senses like one revived by pure adrenaline, and Krokodil’s mockery was the last push.

Thratta pulled the piece of shrapnel out of his body, wordlessly dropped it, and began calmly marching toward Krokodil. The latter lunged at the former, and the soldier sidestepped him, throwing a back kick into the creep without even looking. He only turned to face Krokodil directly again after he heard the thug stumbled into the pillar by the kick. Krokodil angrily stomped the ground and moved toward Thratta again. Thratta planted a front kick in Krokodil’s face, making the thug jump up and back a bit, swaying dizzily, his eyes refusing to come back into focus. Thratta entered a spinning inside crescent kick and nailed Krokodil in the temple.

Krokodil fell prone, and Thratta dropped onto him - ground and pound.

Lander finally stumbled onto the scene to see Thratta kick the remote detonator out of Krokodil’s hands, then sit on Krokodil again and continue pummeling him. Gorilla punches pounded Krokodil’s face, knocking him in and out of consciousness.

Thratta finally stopped when he saw Krokodil had gone limp, bleeding from multiple cuts about the nose, above the eyes, and from his lips. The sheer hell that Krokodil had put them all through, and cold rage against the cartel’s crimes, overtook Thratta a final time right as it seemed he would dislodge from Krokodil’s chest and cuff him. Instead, Thratta grabbed Krokodil by the throat with his left hand, and cocked his other back.

Krokodil regained consciousness just in time to see what was coming, and his remaining eye that wasn’t blackened and swollen shut widened in terror.

Thratta’s fist began to shake, enveloped in a strange glistening white glow like a sudden bubble, then fell into Krokodil’s face. His lower mandible became bone fragments that punched through the lump of flesh that was once a jaw, and every tooth broke to shards too. His face was rendered unrecognizable as the shockwave traveled through the base of the skull, fracturing part of a vertebra, and shook the ground like a small earthquake.

Krokodil wouldn’t be winning any beauty pageants, now or ever. Of the people present, only the good doctor had had the sense to find cover when the shooting started. Now that the rumble was over, he retrieved Krokodil, expecting just to find another body. A coldblooded heartbeat still pumped in the disfigured brute’s chest. A back alley surgery later, and Krokodil came to. His body felt much heavier, in particular his head. Forcing himself to sit up against the extra weight and stare with his one remaining eye at the mirror, he now saw why.

Front and center amidst the scrap that had been used to rebuild his body, a beartrap-like apparatus had taken the place of his lower jaw.

Krokodil’s exterior finally matched his interior.

He twitched his single eye, and he cracked. He punched out the mirror with a fist that now had true brass knuckles built into them, and put his new jaws to work, taking a big bite out of the unsettled doctor’s skull.