Double or Nothing: One in a Million

Say Hi to Corex!

Almost immediately after charging over the mound of dried bone and flaming canyons of magma and crystallized flames, Jack hit the ground and immediately leapt high as the Lord of Wrath crashed into a set of ancient ruins behind him. Rolling into a shake from his head, Jack narrowly swung to his right, flinging his shoulder to the ground as a large, feathered spear drove by, nailing the corner of his boot to the searing hot skeleton of the demon dragon. Jack leapt past as the fiery warrior rolled to a halt, both of his axes barred with gnashing teeth forged from their bony structures.

Jack chuckled, standing at full height while the barrels of his guns graced the air, still cool from sitting back for the show. "Well I'll be. We brought a demon dragon back from the dead, and it looks like one guy chose to honor his tribe with one last kill." The warrior joined the Sin Hunter, standing straight. His muscles, although torn partially and replaced with glowing, transparent orange light, revealed ancient armor and wooden plating on his wrists and shins.

A large burlap cloth cloaked the upper half of his neck to his head, while a sizzling fuse sparked and burst on the end of what seemed like a rope connecting to the back of the hunter gatherer's head. His mouth and eyes were partially stitched, and the bare stump of a horn tore through his burlap cloth. Jack observed all of this, drawing his own conclusions while he tipped his fedora, his smile disappearing. "Well met, gatherer. I don't suppose you'd bother to spare a poor stranger your name?" The fiery warrior lowered his shoulders, but his grip on his axes grew tighter.

"My name is Corex. Nahaluth Corex, of the Pyrist Tribe." Jack resisted the urge to cross his arms, but he did tuck his guns back into their holsters on his hips. "I see. Guess I'll stick with Corex." Jack turned himself to an angle, facing Corex but striding around the side of the ancient ruins. "So, mind telling a sheriff how you got yourself into this all too hot mess? That bag on your head can't mean anything good." At the mention of the sack, Corex's slits of his mouth and eyes sharpened into gold flickers as he leveled his bone axes with the Sin Hunter.

"This Harbinger is my prey. I found it first." Jack shifted his sight toward a recovering Azazel, who was reeling in a pile of rubble behind the warrior. "And I don't doubt it, Corex. I see you've done a number on my friend there. I'd be surprised if you'd treat your family that way." Corex stepped forward, laughing. "Ha! You think this cathulik is a descendent of mine? I doubt it. He fights like a slob." Jack nodded, struggling to buy time for Azazel to wind up a proper strike. "Listen, Corex. I've known folks like you since I was a boy. I get it. You've seen and done."

The fiery hunter gatherer took another step forward, one ax raised for a swing. "You know nothing of my past. My family abandoned me. My tribe removed my horn, my sacred horn, and then," he growled, gesturing to the sparkling fuse on the back of his braid, "they set me ablaze with the eternal spark, a humility stamp in my culture! I have been branded as a coward and a fool for eternity lest my soul find rest in the earth." Jack nodded, his eyes flickering from contact to the ground beneath him. 'You know what that's like, don't you?' He muttered to himself.

As Corex spat a glob of blood fused magma onto the ground beside him, a large fiery chain cracked through the air, snapping closed around the hunter gatherer's neck and flinging him into the rubble of the ruins. Jack stepped away as Azazel leapt overhead, great fangs and a flowing fiery mane erupting from his black leather collar as he tore into the immortal warrior, his blades crashing and cracking against the bone axes. Jack got to his feet as the ground began to tremble violently, throwing the fight off balance.

The Lord of Wrath and Corex tumbled out of sight, leaving the Sin Hunter clinging to the ground as the Flamecrested Harbinger began to descend from the sky, arcing downward toward the nearest volcano. Jack clutched his fedora tight on his head, keeping the other hand locked around a brittle pillar of crushed marble and condensed granite. "Ooh, this is gonna be fun," he grunted, planting his boots as the Harbinger let forth a shrill, low wail. One wouldn't instantly recognize the sound unless one could see the beast before their very eyes.

It was a hollow, rattling shell of its former self, a calcified tumor rolling around in the skull of a once powerful and invulnerable Demon, now held together only by loose threads of memories and nightmares. It stung Jack's ears, ringing in his own mind as if the coils of ripping hot lava had begun to tear away his scalp and peel back his mind slowly, painfully. Further down the spine of the great beast, Azazel continued to hack and slash at the bone axes of the immortal warrior, his own chains of equal strength and even greater rage with every swing.

With one final strike from his chain blades, the Lord of Wrath shattered one of the axes, splintering the bone down to its last string as the weapon tumbled away into the air. Corex responded with a swift slash to Azazel's chest, the weathered and scarred remains of an extinct creature dragging through his body to inflict devastating wounds. The Lord of Wrath stumbled backward, clutching his ribs in agony. Corex advanced, swinging his leather and rope bound foot upward with a forceful sweep. The blow sent the wounded Lord of Wrath flying backward into the collapsing ruins.

Azazel shook his head back and forth, struggling to regain consciousness as the fiery Demon stamped down on his chest, pinning his arms flat against his wounded chest. Azazel's eyes narrowed in a scalding rage as the fiery warrior leveled his gaze with the Lord of Wrath. "You are a fool of a fighter, Lord of Wrath. Your people should be ashamed." Azazel rested his head against the stone pillar, eyes wide with pain and hatred. As the flaming warrior raised his other ax to deliver the killing blow to the Lord of Wrath, Azazel balled his hand into a flaming fist.

With a blazing bright swing, Corex flew backward into the ruins, shattering a pillar of the structure on the creature's back. The destruction of the pillar brought everything crumbling to dust, trapping Corex beneath the ancient ruins. As the dust settled and the wind continued to howl, Azazel steadied himself on the side of a collapsed pillar, resting one knee against a dusty skeleton, the other raised in the reflexive, anticipating stance. The Lord of Wrath caught his breath, breathing slowly while clutching his tattered and scarred jacket. "That was too close."