The lobby of the building was dark and quiet. It was clear that beyond this area everything was normally restricted, but now there was no one to stop him.

  All Zan had was a small fshlight he’d taken before leaving, and he now used it to wind his way into the heart of the complex. There were signs that someone had been here ahead of him; doors that had clearly been forced open, sometimes with sshes that had cut through solid metal.

  But he couldn’t turn back now.

  He descended a flight of stairs, ending up in a corridor that led to a room full of dark monitors covering a wall. Desks y along the walls, the chairs that sat in front of them now empty.

  All was dark and silent, not a single thing moved. He felt like his own breathing had become loud in the stillness that pressed in upon him.

  Something smmed into his back, sending him flying across the room into a monitor on the wall, which cracked and fell on top of him as he crashed to the floor. He jumped up, holding the monitor in front of him like a shield, but the bounty hunter sliced it in half. Zan leaped back, but the bounty hunter was faster.

  Zan felt a hot searing pain as a bde sliced across his right shoulder. He stumbled back, a dark red stain spreading across the right shoulder of his shirt, but the bounty hunter didn’t give him time to recover.

  Lunging forward, the bounty hunter stabbed at Zan with his bde. Zan dodged it by falling backward and rolling away, but the bounty hunter followed, his bde swinging through the space that Zan had occupied a mere second earlier.

  Scrambling to his feet, Zan threw a chair at the bounty hunter, who sliced it in half before it could hit him. But this had given Zan enough time to touch the small panel on the side of his neck.

  “Removing fifty limiters!”

  Immediately he felt a surge of power course through his body, as if a massive, invisible weight had been lifted from him all at once. With a single step, he shot out the door, then sped down the corridor and up the stairway, the bounty hunter right on his heels.

  “Am I just going to run again? I have to, right? He cut my arm off, there’s no way I can fight him! …But I can’t lead him back to the others. I have to end things here, before he takes any more lives.”

  The stairs exploded under him as the bounty hunter shot straight up through the metal, grabbing his legs in midair and flinging him through a closed door.

  Zan gasped for breath as he tumbled to a stop at the end of a long, dark corridor. He looked up, then immediately rolled to the side, barely avoiding a metal sb the bounty hunter had ripped free from the stairwell.

  Zan hurriedly got to his feet and grabbed the handle of the closest door, ripping it off its hinges and throwing it up as a shield to block the bounty hunter’s view.

  The bounty hunter kicked the door, sending it crashing through the wall at the end of the hall, but Zan had already ducked inside the room and made it to the window on the far side.

  He punched through the gss and climbed onto the thin ledge outside. The bounty hunter threw another bde at his legs, but Zan jumped upwards with enough force to break the ledge off, missing the bde that flew through the space he’d been a second earlier.

  Zan caught onto the edge of the roof above him and swung up onto it, nding on his feet. He was so focused that he’d forgotten to feel pain from his new wound.

  Most of the roof was ft, but there was a tower connected to the main building by an enclosed walkway, and Zan now ran across the roof of that walkway before leaping up and smashing through a window on the side of the tower overlooking the roof.

  He smmed into the wall across from the window, then nded on the flight of stairs inside of the tower and immediately started climbing them.

  He’d just reached the top when he heard the bounty hunter smash through the wall below the window and begin making his way up the stairs after him.

  Zan forced open the door to the top of the tower and emerged onto a square ptform only about a dozen feet wide enclosed by a metal railing. A rge spotlight was mounted in the center of the tower, and a pyramid roof extended over the edges.

  Here, Zan stopped and waited a brief moment for his hunter to join him at the top. He watched as he stepped onto the ptform to face him.

  “Now why would you corner yourself like this?” the bounty hunter said, stopping on the other side of the tower.

  “I’ll end this here and now,” Zan said. “I can’t let you live after what you’ve done. And if I leave you now, you’ll probably continue killing.”

  “You’re right. But why do you care? If you escape, you’ll never see me again. Or do you want revenge for your crew?”

  “…Even if they knew what they were getting themselves into, they didn’t deserve to be killed like that. Maybe I do want to avenge them a little. But even so, I can’t let you go on killing people for money.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s wrong. You should at least have a good reason to kill someone, like if it’s to save a loved one.”

  “I think money is a good reason. It’s the best way to measure a person’s value. A person’s beliefs, morals, deeds, and even their physical bodies have no definite value, because everyone views them differently. But the amount of money someone has can be counted and agreed on by everyone. The more money I earn, the more I’m worth.”

  “You can’t measure a human life with money. And even if you believe you can, why choose to make money like this?”

  “I’m not very good at most other jobs. It’s not like I enjoy killing or anything, I just happen to be good at it.”

  “Oh yeah, then why do you use bdes instead of guns? You enjoy the chase don’t you?”

  “Well, anyone would try to make their job a little more fun wouldn’t they?”

  “...I have nothing left to say to you. I’ll kill you here and leave with Rey.”

  “We’ll see,” the bounty hunter said, preparing to fight.

  “I can’t afford to lose though,” Zan said. He took the earpiece out of his ear and slipped it in his pocket. He would need all his attention for the fight to come.

  Reaching up to his neck, he touched his panel, and said four more words before the fight began.

  “Removing four hundred limiters.”

  As soon as he said the words, he grimaced in pain. It felt like electricity was searing his brain as an enormous amount of power rushed through his body.

  It was a great and terrible feeling.

  ***

  “You…you’re the girl who was with the bounty hunter,” Rey said in surprise. “How’d you…never mind. Why’d you kill her?”

  “She was distracted. I have to capture you, and she was in the way. I’ll have to kill her too, since she saw me,” she said, pointing the knife at Chisay as she began walking forward.

  Rey looked at Chisay, who was still curled up in front of the couch, shaking in fear.

  “I can’t let you do that,” Rey said.

  “I have a knife. What can you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Chisay helped us…and I can’t just watch someone like her die in front of my eyes again. No matter what.”

  Rey knew that she’d been helpless st time, but this was different. If there was a chance to save someone, she couldn’t live with herself if she let an innocent person get hurt because of her.

  Now that she felt in control of her own life, she was determined not to make any decisions that she would come to regret.

  She stood in front of the terrified girl behind her and faced the girl with the knife head on.

  She had no pn. This would be her very first fight.

  ***

  The two men shot at each other; Zan nded a hit on his opponent’s helmet while the bounty hunter smmed his fist into Zan’s already wounded right shoulder. Both tumbled away in different directions, but were back on their feet in an instant.

  Zan appeared to be preparing an attack from above, but at the st moment he slid toward the bounty hunter’s legs and knocked them out from under him.

  The bounty hunter kicked Zan across the ptform, sending him crashing into a railing that shuddered from the impact.

  Zan used the railing as a pce to kick off from as he shot back at the bounty hunter, breaking it free from the tower. The railing on one side of the ptform fell out of sight as he unched himself at the bounty hunter.

  The bounty hunter blocked his attack, sliding back a few feet. He aimed a downward strike at Zan, but barely missed as Zan leaped back.

  He was at a clear disadvantage, cking armor, weapons, and even an arm, but he’d gotten significantly stronger and faster.

  Zan knew he couldn’t keep this up for long. He had to finish this fight before the energy Rey had given him when he left ran out. And the longer he kept fighting without his limiters, the heavier the toll on his body became.

  He sidestepped, avoiding a lightning fast bde that the bounty hunter had thrown at him. The bde cut into one of the four corner posts holding up the roof, which shuddered slightly.

  Zan and the bounty hunter engaged in close combat once more, each throwing punches while trying to block their opponent’s. Zan swung his leg up and nded a kick on the bounty hunter’s right side, sending him flying into another corner post that bent upon impact.

  The roof creaked as the bounty hunter got to his feet and shot at Zan, a new bde in his right hand.

  He swung the bde at his neck, but Zan deflected it with a well pced punch as he sidestepped again and tripped the bounty hunter, who then rolled head over heels, nding in a crouching position. Zan aimed another kick at the back of his head, but the bounty hunter stuck the bde behind him, blocking Zan’s falling kick.

  But instead of slicing off Zan’s foot, or wounding him at all, the bde shattered from the impact, Zan’s foot crashing down on the back of his neck.

  Zan leaped back as the bounty hunter spun around.

  “How’d you do that?!” he said, surprise filling his deep, muffled voice. “Last time I was able to cut your arm off with a scrap of metal!”

  “And I still haven't forgiven you for that!” Zan replied, unching another attack.

  Their fists connected, both of them stepping, evading, and trying to hit their opponent wherever they could. Zan made up for his missing limb with incredible speed, and making more use of his legs, while the bounty hunter was clearly more used to fighting with his arms and bdes.

  “You may’ve been able to break a bde, but can you survive this?!” the bounty hunter said, leaping away from Zan and kicking one of the remaining undamaged corner posts.

  Zan looked up as the roof came crashing down, then squatted and covered his head with his arm. At the st second, he leapt upwards with all his might, breaking straight through the falling rooftop.

  For a moment he was in midair, surrounded by broken bits of roofing materials as it colpsed onto the ptform below him. Then he nded on the snting rooftop while the bounty hunter stood up on the other side. Between them, the center area of the rooftop had partially leveled out in the colpse, creating a small area several feet wide that was full of broken rubble, but mostly ft.

  They both began to walk towards each other, their speed increasing with each step. Their momentum increased as they approached the center of the rooftop, which would serve as the stage for their final fight.

  ***

  Rey caught the girl’s wrists as she rushed at her with the knife. Rey stumbled back as the girl pushed forward, trying to drive the knife into her.

  “Aren’t you supposed to take me alive??” Rey asked, struggling to keep the girl at bay. Her arms were already tiring.

  “As long as I avoid your vitals we can heal you back on the ship, though it’ll hurt a hell of a lot!”

  The girl twisted her wrists and yanked them away from Rey, sending her stumbling back a step. She prepared to ssh at her while her defense was open, but right as she brought the knife down, Chisay crashed into her side, sending them both sprawling onto the floor.

  Rey grabbed Chisay’s hand and quickly pulled her up as the other girl turned and gred at them.

  “I’m sorry! I’m weak,” Chisay said, trembling as Rey held her hand.

  Scared as she was, she had gotten back up to help Rey.

  “We’ll beat her together,” Rey responded, facing their opponent.

  She lunged towards them with the knife, and Rey and Chisay separated, moving in opposite directions. Angry, she went after Chisay, but this was what Rey had been expecting, and she tackled the girl from behind.

  The girl stabbed at her with the knife, grazing her left arm. Rey grabbed the hand holding the knife as they struggled on the floor.

  “Move, Rey!” Chisay called while standing over them holding a chair.

  Rey pushed away from the girl, and Chisay brought down the chair on her shoulder.

  The girl let out a cry, but caught the chair and yanked it out of Chisay’s hands. She got up and swung the chair at Chisay who ducked to avoid it.

  Rey grabbed a cushion from the couch and pulled it over the girl's face from behind in an attempt to smother her. The girl struggled and let go of the chair, then began stabbing at Rey’s hands with her knife, causing her to instinctively let go of the cushion and step back.

  The girl spun and grabbed Rey’s hair with her free hand, but Chisay caught her other wrist, preventing her from stabbing Rey.

  Rey used the brief distraction to nd a kick on the girl’s midriff, but it wasn’t enough to make her let go of her hair. Instead, she pulled Rey towards her while trying to free her other hand from Chisay’s grip.

  Chisay, getting desperate, bit down hard into her arm, drawing blood. The girl screamed and threw Chisay off, but it gave Rey the opportunity to punch her in the face.

  The girl let go of Rey’s hair, and Rey stepped back as she wildly swung the knife in her general direction. After a few seconds, the girl stumbled back and held her wounded arm in pain.

  Chisay spat out blood onto the floor, looking disgusted.

  “I never wanna taste human flesh again.”

  ***

  Zan and the bounty hunter’s battle had ascended to a godlike state, their movements now too fast to be tracked by the average person’s eyes. Each blocked, evaded, and attacked with superhuman speed and strength, all their focus devoted to the battle at hand.

  The bounty hunter drew another short bde from within his armor and sshed at Zan, but he deflected it and aimed a kick upward that caught the hand holding the bde all in less than a second.

  Zan felt like his body was on fire. He knew that as soon as he slowed down, he would colpse.

  The only way to win was to finish his opponent off quickly, before the consequences of his power caught up with him.

  His entire body felt like it was on fire as his attacks intensified, aiming at any weak points in the bounty hunter’s armor while simultaneously blocking his strikes.

  The bounty hunter stepped back.

  Zan pushed forward, unaware of anything that existed outside of the two of them.

  The bounty hunter took another step back.

  Zan felt neither pain nor fear; only a burning desire to kill the person before him.

  The bounty hunter, now only a few steps away from the edge of the roof, saw an opening in Zan’s defense and struck, aiming directly for his heart.

  With speed and strength that far exceeded normal human limits, an arm was thrust through flesh and bone.

  For a moment that seemed far longer than it really was, neither of them moved.

  It was over.

  Then the bounty hunter coughed.

  Zan’s arm had pierced the base of his throat, right above his colrbone. His blood covered hand, ft like a bde, had emerged from the back of his neck.

  What the bounty hunter had thought was an opening had been a trap, and Zan had used it to step in close and stab through the small gap in the armor right below his helmet.

  Zan withdrew his arm, and the bounty hunter let out a small sputter as he raised his own hands to his throat.

  “I win,” he said, watching as the bounty hunter stumbled backward and lost his bance.

  He fell, tumbling down the sloping tiles and off the edge out of sight.

  Immediately, Zan felt the strength drain from his body, and he fell to his knees.

  “Adding four hundred fifty limiters,” he said, the effects finally catching up to him. His body was racked in excruciating pain, and he suddenly had a headache so bad that it made him want to split it open. His heart felt like it would explode, and his shoulder still stung from the st wound the bounty hunter had given him.

  All he could do was hold his head and curl up on the broken roof as his vision went dark and his mind became consumed by the waves of pain that burned throughout him. These were the repercussions from the power that had been given to him.

  The cost of winning.

  Unbeknownst to Zan, the transmitter in his pocket began to beep.