"Where’d he go?” Dominatrix spun about, eyes scanning for her opponent.


    “Look out.” Turning towards the source of the voice. She whipped around, chains flashing. The redhead emerged from the shattered remains of the burnt corpse, lunging at her with dagger in hand.


    Clucking her tongue, she swept her chains to the side. She caught his wrists in her hands, which were large enough to crush a pair of skulls. With a squeeze, she snapped his bones in half, freeing the dagger of his grip.


    Wincing in a bout of agony, the redhead’s smile remained, even as his wrists hung loosely off his hands.


    “What’s so funny?”


    “This.” A quartet of jagged bones erupted out the broken wrists, extending towards Dominatrix.


    “What the–” She deftly evaded three of the bones branching towards her, but the fourth one vanished from sight.


    All of a sudden, a searing pain tore through her head. Wet warmth spread across the left of her face.


    Suppressing a guttural howl threatening to dribble past her lips, Dominatrix instinctively clutched her injured eye, dropping the redhead. The agony radiated through the entirety of her being.


    Fighting against the pain, she snapped her chains into actions, fending off the redhead.


    Through the haze of her one good eye, she saw the bony ends of the redhead’s wrists, once shattered and broken, were back to normal.


    Azrael lurked around the Dominatrix’s blind side, slipping out of her field of view, as he closed in on the distance separating them. Deprived of a blade, he felt naked.


    Linked metal rattled, a sharp clamour of warning that kept the redhead at bay. She swung the chains off her right hand in a swirling tornado, as though unscathed.


    At this rate, I can’t beat her.


    Eyeing a struggling Salamander, Azrael decided it was time he switched up his plan. Running at the fiery corpse he nodded, relaying his command with his mind. Linking arms with Salamander, he swung about, swathe in a fiery maelstrom that held back Dominatrix and the shadow clad assassin. The heat bore down on him, steaming him from the inside out, but he knew he had to keep at it. He pressed on, trickles of sweat and the pungent scent of cooked meat seared his charred nares, in the midst of the fiery hell that had been spun.


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    Linked metal tore through the blazing wall, hounding the elusive redhead. The chains wrapped around his waist and tore him off from his flaming pawn.


    “Clingy aren’t ya?” Azrael could feel the rawness of his skin, peeled back by the flames. The burning itch wore on, as time flew past, stinging worse than maggots crawling across puckered flesh.


    “This fucking tactic again!? You can’t be serious.” The shadow clad assassin grimaced in the background, engaging Salamander in battle once more.


    “Huh?” Dominatrix draped her chains around her free hand, reeling Azrael towards her makeshift armoured fist.


    “Oh wait, wait, wait, time out!” The redhead pummelled into the enchained fist, abdomen first, lurching out a mouthful of bile. He retched from the acidic aftertaste searing the roof of his mouth.


    “That was your plan?” She grabbed him by the throat, hoisting him off the spew. She looked him up and then down, tightening her hold on him. “Adios.”


    Seizing the chained hand constricting his throat, Azrael swung his fiery legs over, ensnaring Dominatrix’s throat between his thighs. He flexed his muscles till his legs tightened like a noose around her throat, squeezing her breath out in a coughing retch, transmuting into a searing howl dribbling past her lips. Her grip around his neck loosened, trying to pry free from her continued agony.


    The chains binding him fell away. He was free. Seizing the moment, he untangled himself and flew backwards. He landed on his feet, with the grace of a feline, omitting a throaty purr.


    Without missing a beat, he propelled himself forward, his sight locked in on Dominatrix. Bereft of his arsenal, or at least a dagger, he pushed on, determined to make do with what he had at his disposal. Bearing the pearly whites of his maw he buried his teeth into burnt flesh, flooding his mouth with a ferrous tang.


    Desperately tugging at Azrael, Dominatrix’s screams abated, gurgling liquid crimson out her torn vocal cords. Staggering backwards, a length of linked metal wrapped around her ankle, slipping up her stance and dowsing her in a pool of bile.


    He pried his teeth off Dominatrix’s throat, inhaling a heaping mouthful. Holding his hand up, he lined up his fingers till he made a crude spade. In a lungful, he drove the makeshift weapon through her torn vocal cords and out the nape of her neck, tainting his hands in steaming gore.


    Heart racing within the confines of his tightening chest, Azrael dug into Dominatrix’s gushing wound, pouring her blood over his body, extinguishing the flames clinging onto his physique. The singed skin began weaving itself into gnawed flesh, mending the burns to slivering scars, before reverting back to a spotless gleam.


    Exhaling a breath, he stood tall over his opponent’s remains. On reflex, his fingers plucked an object out the air, hurtling towards him.


    “What’s this?”


    Raising an eyebrow, he turned the projectile over, realising he had been handed… a hand. He turned the meat, running his gaze over scorch marks lighting up the fingertips. Shifting his attention over to the battle between Salamander and the shadow clad assassin, he exhaled a sigh.


    “Looks like he could use a hand.”


    A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, as he made his way over.