Ch17 In the Case of Johnny Rancid and Anthony Romulus

This fiction will be rated FR21 just incase. Beware sexual content and stuff like that. Readers discretion is advised.

Many of the characters seen are HumanX adaptations of characters from the various DC Comics animated series. HumanX holds no rights to characters such as Red X and Johnny Rancid (he only tweaked them for this story).

Let's get to the story already

The remainder of us make our way past the dungeon feeling part and enter a new room. This one is starting to look a little hot.

"Who turned on the heat?" Johnny asks. "It's freaking boiling."

"Keep on your guard." Romulus warns us.

"So we're doing this one at a time?" A tall, extremely muscular black man with dreadlocks and eyes tat look as if they'd been burnt to coal walks out from behind the scenes. "That's fine with me. Crispin wants to fight the little ninja dude himself anyway. But I suggest the rest of you stay." The heat in the room rises, causing the air to twist and sway. "You're going to need at least that much."

"Let's go Romulus." I look at him and get ready for a fight. "I'll stay behind this time."

Pandora looks at me and Romulus intently, swallowing nervously. "Anthony is incredibly strong, but this person beat him before. To have him ask Romulus to fight alongside him i order to take out this one guy when he was willing to leave everyone behind just to move on quicker…This person must be incredible."

The heat radiating off of the man in front of us burns like hellfire. I smile confidently as I unsheathe my X cutters.

---

I step forward with my X cutters unsheathed and grin maliciously, staring up at the behemoth of a man standing in front of me. "With Charlotte gone I don't have to hold myself back. This is going to get bloody."

"Stop." I feel myself being pulled back as Johnny's hand reaches out and he passes me. "Keep going on ahead."

"Fine." I sheath my cutters and signal Romulus. "Let's go."

"Wait. He's Gregory Leon. He's almost at the same level as Crispin himself. He's the second of Crispin's three assassins which the Agent was a part of."

"Oh, yeah? So he's like, a big shot?" I scratch my neck through the armour of my suit. "You think you got it?"

"Not much of a choice right now." Johnny shrugs.

"Of course there's a choice!" Pandora yells out, clenching his fists and shaking under the fear. "He's a level six, just like Crispin! Leave it to Romulus and Red X! They have a chance!"

"Yeah, well." Johnny scratches his head and tries to think things over. "I don't really get the whole power level thing. I know this guy's some kind of bada**. It's all over my head, you know?"

"Then why?" Pandora asks. "This is suicide. There's no reason to stay behind and die when we we have two perfectly matched fighters here! Red X may even be stronger!"

"Pandora." Romulus stops him. "It's his decision, but I should warn you Johnny. Even though he isn't as strong s the Agent Leon is almost his match. You'll be fighting someone strong enough to cause Alex harm."

"To be fare I wasn't able to fight my hardest. They had me drugged quite a bit and my fighting ability was cut nearly in half." I interrupt. "But yeah, these guys are strong. We could take him easily but Johnny may die."

"I know that much." Johnny looks directly at me. "But Mary stayed behind, Charlotte too. Even that little french girl. I can't really call myself a man if I let little girls like them fight while I stay behind and watch."

"So this is about pride?" I ask him. "A worthless human trait which pushes us to do ridiculous things for no reason aside from itself. It's a perfect weakness for you. I guess I can't really stop you. If I stay behind I'll just damage that foolish pride."

"We're leaving then?" Romulus asks.

"Guess so." I turn to leave, holding my arm up to Johnny. "Don't get yourself killed."

"Like I could die." Johnny slams his hand against mine. "That foolish pride you're looking down on, wont allow it."

Pandora cringes before giving in. "I'm staying behind too."

"Appreciate it." Johnny smirks. "But you sure you aint gonna get squashed? You can go ahead with them you know."

"You can't be the only one dying." Pandora straightens up and stands strong.

"Let's get out of here before they start making out." I tell Romulus. "You two play nice now."

---

Romulus and I continue on.

"I'm surprised you left Pandora behind since you where so against me leaving Charlotte and Mary." He can feel the unpleasant smirk through my armoured helmet. "Isn't abandoning you teammates like that supposed to be heartless and cruel?"

"I was arguing because you left women behind to fight hardened criminals and psychopaths on their own." Romulus returns my hidden gesture with a toothy grin. "But I guess a cruel person wouldn't call for reinforcements when he thinks no one is looking. From what I've heard about you I thought you didn't like to play the nice guy."

"Doesn't mean I don't know how." We reach the end of the tunnel.

Waiting for us is a wooden door six stories tall with rusted steel outlining the rims. It exudes a horrible aura and is surrounded with the heads of grotesque gargoyles.

"Waiting for us behind this door." Romulus looks up and swallows. "There must be something big."

"This is where your info drops off, right?"

"Yeah. From here on we're fighting blind." He gives me a look and another grin. "Is that why you dropped the girls off early on? Because we don't know what's behind here?"

"That's not why I dumped the girls back there." I move up to the door. "That's why we're the only ones here."

"You knew Johnny would stay behind if we left the girls first and you let Mary fight despite not being able to win." He crosses his arms thinking he has me figured out. "You called for help to keep her from dying, and maybe did the same for Charlotte. You knew I'd have El Dorado and Hotwire stay at the front because I wanted to keep her from fighting alone. You also knew that Pandora would volunteer to stay with Johnny if things came to that. You planned it all out so that you and I would fight Crispin on our own."

"Keheh." I chuckle under my breath and place a hand on the door, pushing on it and feeling the incredible weight fall back at the pressure of my touch. "You're wrong."

"Yeah right. I have you pegged." Romulus pats himself on the back. "You're a bleeding heart nice guy. A regular hero like the rest of us. Admit it."

"You're giving me too much credit." I tell him as we move into the next room. "I'm not a very nice guy. I'm actually very selfish."

---

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" Pandora yells over the flames rushing over his cubic force shield like flowing lava.

Johnny looks through the flames and signals to Pandora. "Drop the field!"

Johnny runs out from Pandora's protection and through the flames. He reaches back and goes in to nail one to Leon's cheek but the giant of a man moves with speed beyond someone of his size and ducks out of the way, placing his hand against Johnny's back and firing a blaze of condensed flame, tossing him across the room with the force behind it. Johnny peels himself off the wall and rubs his nose.

"Good thing these fancy clothes Charlotte gave me work just like Alex's old armour. Impenetrable to heat, cold and sharp objects." He dusts some chard wall off of his shoulder. "In this I'm practically invincible."

"Then perhaps you should have asked for you entire body to be covered." Leon builds his heat once more. "With your head exposed like that you're an easy target. At least it would cover your hideous hair."

"Looks whose talking!" Johnny snarls. "Dreadlocks? Go start a reggae band you hippie b*****d!"

"That doesn't even make sense! I think your hair's crawled into your brain!"

"Let's settle this with our fists!" Johnny pumps his hand into the air.

"Yeah!" Leon does the same. "Looser has to shave his head for a year!"

"No! Two years!" They jump at each other and start to fight again.

"They're both…" Pandora stands and watches, his arms drooping down to the sides. "…just idiots."

---

Romulus sniffs the air as we search through the next room. "You nervous about something?" I ask him.

"Don't act like you're not suspicious." He looks around. "Every time we come to a room like this we meet someone powerful."

"Why can't you just admit that you're afraid of the dark?"

"I'm not." He snarls at me. "Take this seriously. There's something in here."

"Then lets draw it out." I reach my hand into the sky and let off a blinding red light from my palm.

"The hell are you doing!?" Romulus asks.

"We're gonna fight it sooner or later."

"We could have just-" He grabs my arm but I interrupt him by placing my finger against his lips.

"We're here to take down Crispin's Depraved. That wont happen simply by killing Crispin. We need to humiliate and destroy him. His followers are looking for a miracle drug that will give their lives meaning. They want to be like his most powerful warriors. If we crush those warriors then the followers will loose confidence. By my estimation seventy percent will leave and return to society as regular human beings, twenty percent will continue on and try to continue the Crispin faction and the remaining ten percent will be absorbed into the emanating factions of the Depraved operating in other areas. All we need to do is take down the twenty percent in order to make sure the seventy stay inactive. From there the police can handle things."

"And how exactly do you suggest we deal with the remaining twenty?" He looks into my eyes through the reinforced eye pieces of my helmet.

"We kill them."

"Never. I wont do that again." His hand grips harder.

"Then what do you plan to do?" I ask him. "This is not something you can avoid. We're not facing noble super villains with a code of honour who have a master plan or kind people who just had one bad day. We're fighting a bunch of soiled self absorbed prick children who have gotten their hands on some very dangerous stuff. "

"Yeah, children. That's what they are. They don't know any better."

"How about that spider thing from before?"

"He's different." Romulus' grip starts to loosen. "He's a monster. He isn't even human anymore."

"You fit both of those descriptions, don't you mutt?" I ask him.

"But I don't kill people. I don't make the conscious choice to hurt people."

"These children you are trying to protect. They do. You want to blame Crispin because he's an easy solution. You want to blame the Depraved because they are an organization and you don't feel guilty for killing one of those like you would for killing a human. And you want to blame Xenothium, an innocent inanimate object completely unaware of all this because it isn't alive. The fact is you'll blame anyone but the ones responsible."

"What is to blame then?" He holds my masked face in closer, his fangs at the ready despite his bleeding human heart.

"Sentient beings." I tell him clearly. "Human beings in particular are a danger to themselves. Lions eat their young and cats torture their prey, but human beings in particular feel malice and hatred as a base emotional response. We also plan to cause harm to others without meaning. It may be possible…no. It is almost certain that human beings are the central cause of all bad things in the universe, or at least the ones who carry out these things. In fact it may be more appropriate to say that all bad things in this world are caused by imperfect beings with free will."

"What does that have to do with peoples lives?" Romulus asks.

"The Depraved itself is not at fault for the actions of its followers. The Depraved is an organization and has no free will of its own. It is the leaders and the followers who cause these things to happen. Nothing will change if all we do is take away the organization they use as a scapegoat. We need to make them see that their actions will bring down heavy consequences. So stop trying to spoil the people of the world and start to tackle the real problem."

A deep growl echoes through the chamber walls as Romulus' irises shrink and his body tenses. "Looks like well have to continue our debate later." We stand back to back, guarding ourselves from all angles. "But I'm not forgetting what you said Alex. I respect you as a fighter and a leader but you are no hero."

"I never said I was." I listen into the darkness, waiting for the enemy to make a sound. "Actually I think I'm more of an anti hero."

"You think you're so cool." Romulus chuckles as his body urges itself towards mutation. "It kind of ticks me off."

---

Johnny tosses his crowbar and it misses Leon who responds by tossing a ball of fire his way. Johnny dodges to the side, narrowly avoiding it. "That would have gone straight through my stomach." Johnny tries to keep up but the heat is getting to him. Sweat pours down his neck but his eyes burn with determination. He grips the stone wall and pushes himself to stay standing.

"Judging by your conversation before…" Leon boasts. "Your friends didn't seem too confident in your abilities. I'd say you're outclassed. The two of you combined don't have any chance of taking me on. Even if that coward in the corner could dry off his pants long enough to make a move on me. All he's been doing is hide in that force field."

Pandora shivers under the box force field he's been using to protect himself from Leon. His arm shake under more than just the pressure of keeping his box up.

Leon walks towards Pandora, holding out his arm and placing it against the surface of the box. "When I was young I only had the power to make sparks. I weak, pathetic and couldn't even fight back when I was attacked. I had no power. I had no future. Then I met Crispin and my life became something new. I didn't need anyone. I trusted in my own power and never fallowed anyone I didn't want to. I was never weak again. I gained power from Xenotope and never had to rely on anyone again. I became something other than that pathetic weak little puke. You remind me a lot of myself back then, but you can't even see it. You have something far more powerful than my sparks where but you can't even see how this power can grow." His fingers dig into the box. "And because of that you will always be weak, relying on other and never growing." The force field dissipates under the pressure. "Those you fall back on will leave you to dye. And you will be left alone." Leon hand reaches back and ignites with furious blazing flames.

Leon's fist comes down like a burning star on Pandora but stops short against Johnny's chest. At the last moment Johnny had leapt in front of the blaze. The flames swirl around his body, piercing his unprotected chest and face. He falls to his knees but immediately stands back up.

"Th-That's impossible." Leon steps back. "No one's ever been able to stand after that attack. That attack alone was what made me one of Crispin's three assassins. It surround the enemy in my flames and burns there skin to a crisp."

"You okay Pan?" Johnny asks.

"What…What the hell are you talking about!? Why did you do that?! You would have died! You should have died!" Pandora screams out but Johnny grabs him and pulls his body off the ground.

"Now you listen to me you little f**k turd! I aint dyin'! For one thing this snake haired b*****d's not even as strong as Alex made him out to be!" Johnny screams into his face.

"Snake hair?" Leon grabs one of his dreads. "They really that bad?"

"And another thing!" Johnny pulls him in to around two inches from his face. "Where the bloody corn filled crap do you get off saying I'm going to die! I just saved your life! There's protocol for stuff like that! You're supposed to be like "Thank you Johnny. Because our friendship is strong you where able to stand against his mighty blaze" then I'm all like "Do not worry my friend. We will join forces to defeat our common foe", and stuff."

"You've been watching too many samurai movies." Pandora says, not knowing how to deal with this.

Johnny gives up, turning back around to Leon and getting a grip on his crowbar again. "Whatever. I don't want to put too much effort into explaining myself. Just count this as a favour between two combat partners. Right now I just want to beat this flamer into the ground."

"So it has enough brain cells to use word play?" Leon scoffs. "But so far I haven't seen a single one of your hits actually hit, let alone damage me. You couldn't even get me on one knee."

"We'll see." Johnny dives in head first, swinging his crowbar with full force. Leon dodges back with ease and lets out a blast of flame across Johnny's stomach, knocking him on his back.

Johnny tries to hold back a howl as Leon's foot crushes his stomach but he can't keep it down and it escapes in a cloud of blood. Before he can even try to move Leon stomps his head back into the ground with his foot and holds it there.

"Johnny!" Pandora looses it and fires a force field box at high speed. It is crushed against Leon's face.

"I guess you want to die first." Leon points a finger towards Pandora "I wont keep you waiting then."

Pandora shivers under Leon's killer gaze.

"RUN!" Johnny screams from under the crushing weight of Leon's foot. "Get out of here!"

Pandora stands paralyzed, locked in Leon's eyes unable to move. Leon's hand ignites and Pandora is swallowed up by a sea of flames. He grips his own arms and screams as the flames eat through his skin and he falls to the ground.

"PANDORA!" Johnny calls out to his fallen comrade.

Leon allows his arm to fall back to his side and sighs. "Now if only all of the weaklings in this world would give themselves up to death so willingly."

---

Romulus and I listen into the darkness and finally zero in on a noise.

"You hear that?" I ask him.

"Yeah." He nods. "It sound like a woman crying."

We walk through the darkness until we meet some chick sitting on the ground in a corner of the room, her legs presses up against her chest as she cries into her knees. She's completely naked and covered in dirt. It looks like she's been here for years. He long unkept red hair dangles in knots down her bruise covered body.

"Are you okay miss?" Romulus asks. "What am I saying. How can you be okay down here? My name is Anthony and this is Alex. We're here to help you."

"Actually we're here to kill Crispin, but we can do both." I correct him.

"Have a heart will you?" Romulus tells me.

"For our enemies?" I ask him. "Or haven't you smelt it on her yet. I don't even have the heightened senses you do and even I can smell it. That girl smells like blood. And it's not her own."

"Don't you even have any compassion for a frightened woman?" Romulus asks only seconds before his back opens up and blood spills from down like a waterfall.

The woman pulls her hand out from his back and looks down at the blood terrified.

"No." She whispers to herself. "Not again."

She slowly places the blood covered fingers in her mouth and licks them dry.

"It's so good." She cries as she goes for the blood running down her wrist. "I can't stop myself."

She reaches for Romulus' throat but he ducks out of the way and pushes a palm against her stomach, knocking her back without causing her any harm.

"We have to kill her." I reach for my X's but Romulus stops me.

"Can't you hear her?" He asks me. "She's in pain! I know what this is like. She can't control herself. It's the same thing they used on me."

"Why do you think they put her here." I tell him, tossing my X's anyway. "They're using her to appeal to your sympathy."

"And maybe you're just paranoid." He tries to reason with me. "I know how these things work. She can't stop herself when her mind is ruled by instinct."

"And the fact she's a woman has nothing to do with it."

"That's irrelevant!"

"Do you think I don't hate this too?" I ask him. "If there was a way to save her don't you think I 'd take it?"

"What do you mean?" He asks.

"Think about it. Why would Crispin take the risk of placing someone under level six as his last guard? Level six is where you have either lost yourself completely or you gain full control over your abilities. Unless you think that is this girl's full form then we're dealing with someone who know exactly what she's doing."

"How do we tell which one she is?"

"Does it matter?" I ask, tossing a few more X's into the darkness to keep our enemy at bay. "If she's lost her mind then we should kill her before she can be used to hurt anymore people and if she's in control then we have to kill her anyway."

"She doesn't seem in control. Are you sure?" Romulus second guesses me.

"Fine. I have a plan." I tell him. "We'll put her down in one move."

---

Johnny lies half broken and beaten under Leon's foot. He looks at Pandora's smoke covered body. Pandora lets out a weak cough, allowing Johnny to know that he's alive.

"He's still breathing, huh?" Leon asks, taking his foot off of Johnny's throat and walking over to Pandora. He reaches his hand up and prepares to finish him off. "You people are like insects."

Johnny's massive arms reach around Leon's stomach and lock him in place.

"What are you doing?" Leon asks. "You're only going to die quicker."

"I thought you wanted us to rush into death." Johnny lifts the towering man off of his feet. "But I aint rushing in without expecting a fight!" Leon comes up over Johnny's head and falls backwards. His head crashes against the ground in a suplex.

"You think this is a game?" Leon gets to his feet and feels the back of his head. "I'll burn you alive."

"Shut up!" Johnny grins. "I'm sick of talking! Let's fight!" He looks back at Pandora. "Rest easy Pan. I'm about to cut loose on this flaming pile of s**t."

"Pile of…" Leon cringes. "You're going to want to brace yourself." He reaches out a hand and fires a stream of flames. "Because this is going to leave a mark!"

Johnny takes the flame streams as Leon sends them one after another. His coat sleeves absorb most of the damage but the he can feel the heat brushing against his face.

"If this keeps up I'm dead." Johnny realizes and runs into the flames.

Leon pours the flames on even hotter but Johnny ignores the heat and runs straight through. He makes it to the end and delivers a straight punch to Leon's face.

"Your flames may burn like hell but fire isn't solid. If I ignore the pain and push through I'll reach you. Your power doesn't give you any defence." Johnny tells him.

Leon recovers from Johnny's punch and reaches back and pummels his face with his fists. The sound of the super charged punches radiates through the massive room. Johnny tires to block the next punch.

"Wait!" Johnny realizes too late as the fist reaches hi open palm. "This one's different!"

The tip of Leon's knuckles explode. The explosion travels down Johnny's arm ripping his skin all the way to down his forearm.

"Rrryyyaaaughhhhh!" Johnny stumbles back and grips his limp, hanging arm. The muscles inside of it are ripped and what remains of his skin dangles loosely. The whole thing is covered in blood.

"This is my true power." Leon's fist collides with Johnny's stomach this time. The force of the explosion pushes him flat against the wall where Leon pins him with an elbow to the neck. "My power is actually the ability to ignite the air. If I use it at a low degree I can create streams of fire. But if I raise its power."

Leon's fist hits Johnny's stomach once more. The explosion pounds Johnny's body into the wall with so much strength it begins to crumble.

"I can cause an explosion. You see my power is more suited for close combat like this rather than controlling streams of fire. By focusing all of my power into the tip of my fist and condensing the molecules in the air through a punch I can cause these explosions and do incredible damage."

"Should I buy you a medal?" Johnny asks through the pool of blood starting to form in his throat.

"No." Leon smirks as he reaches back for another strike. "I'll just keep your head as a trophy."

---

Romulus stands at the ready as I toss some flash bombs into the air. The light and sound both paralyses our enemy and reveal her position. Romulus rushes in and holds her to the ground.

"Now Alex!" He calls out but I don't respond. "That b*****d. I should have guessed."

As Romulus wrestles to keep the girl on the ground I slip through the exit gate and close it behind me.

"I told you I'm more of an anti hero." I say as the door locks down behind me. "Betrayal is a give in. But I think you might find this battle to be a well needed experience. People who fight for justice can't understand. The world is not a loving place. Those who believe it is are overindulged infants who have yet to come to terms with how the world really works. I hoe this will show you just a little of what you are getting into by following this path. Good luck Anthony Romulus."

---

This time the wall behind Johnny breaks down completely and he falls through the hole in the wall.

"Then again." Leon dusts off his hands. "That would be an ugly trophy. I'll let you keep your head."

Leon gets ready to leave but stops cold when he hears the sound of the rubble moving as Johnny inches his way back to his feet.

"Thanks for that." Johnny stands on his feet, blood streaming down his stomach and falling on the ground. "But I can't just let you walk away from this. You see, I told Red X I'd take you on. And I already said I can't back down while the girls are back there fighting. It would be embarrassing if I was the only one to die."

Leon turns back and fires a blast of flame from his hand but Johnny is already moving. Johnny ducked under the flame and runs along the blind spot it created, reaching his arm up and clenching his giant fist around Leon's neck, lifting him off the ground.

"You should be dead." Leon snarls.

"I already told you I'm too stupid to die!" Johnny tosses him against a wall and comes in fast, sending punch after punch towards Leon. Leon swerves out of the way each time.

Leon lets off a blaze of intense heat from his entire body, sending Johnny flying backwards but he refuses to loose his footing. Johnny rushes in and Leon sends out another blast of flames but Johnny runs through them.

"I forgot about his fire proof coat." Leon cringes as Johnny tackles his shoulder right into his stomach and lifts him off the ground. Johnny continues charging, slamming the much larger man through one wall and letting go of him just in time to toss him into the next.

"This coat's the only reason I'm not dead." Johnny breaths heavily as he thinks over his options, under the increasing heat. "I'll definitely have to buy Alex and Charlotte a thank you gift."

Johnny runs in head first, fists at the ready. Leon brings his own fists up and pushes an explosion attack into Johnny's face. The blood splatters against the floor and nearby walls. Johnny grips his bleeding face and takes another hit, this time to the stomach, reopening his older wounds.

"DIE!" Leon charges in, pounding Johnny with explosive punch after punch. Johnny falls on his back but Leon isn't done. He hammers Johnny with explosive punches. The ground splinters underneath the gravity of each bone crushing punch until it finally gives way and the both of them fall through to the room underneath. Leon lifts Johnny up and punches him in the face a few times before dropping his limp body on the ground. "You're nothing!" He screams at Johnny's unmoving body. "You're nothing but weak worthless trash! I am strong! I killed you!"

Johnny coughs. Leon kicks him in the chest furiously.

"You can't be alive! I am the strongest! You cannot be alive!" Johnny lies still for a few moments as Leon breathes hard but smiles. "You're finally dead."

"Heh." Leon's irises shrink in fear at the sound of Johnny laughing. He takes two steps back in disbelief as Johnny slowly gets to his feet. "Hehehe."

"It's…" Leon looks as if he's facing the devil. "It's impossible."

"I guess it is." Johnny wipes the blood from his cheek and licks his dry lips. "But it's happening."

Leon looks down at Johnny's stomach and remembers searing it a while before now. "Then why is there nothing there now!? No bruises or burns!? Nothing!"

Leon looks up at Johnny and asks "What the hell. How are you alive?"

"How many times do I have to keep saying it?" Johnny grabs his right arm and flexes it. "I'm not like Alex, Charlotte or Mary. I don't use my brain to fight. I rush in head on because I'm not smart enough to know when to quite. I keep fighting even when my organs collapse and my eyes are so covered in blood I can't see, because none of that matters as long as I come out the winner. But the main reason no one can ever kill me is simple." His blood covered teeth are revealed in a gargantuan grin. "I'm just too stupid to die!"

Johnny moves in fast, refusing to give Leon time to think of his next move. Not that he could if he had time. Leon screams out in terror as the man who looks more like a corpse reaches back and hits him with the force of a truck. Leon panics and fires off a blast of heated pressure from his body, blowing away everything around him.

---

Romulus feels his inside begin to split as his enemies toes dig deep inside of him. He jumps back, fearing the loss of his consciousness and grabs him stomach, refusing to let his organs spill out.

"Alex was right." Romulus thinks to himself as he feels his organs reforming their bonds. "She cut they exact placing needed to cause me to faint as soon as possible. She bypassed my organs and cut the tissue keeping them in place so that I would faint and she could do some real damage. She's in control. She's just a good actress."

Romulus doesn't have much time but blocks when the girls spinning kick nearly connects with him face. She jumps back into the darkness and crawls along the sides of the walls out of sight.

"She has similar powers to mine but if my nose is correct her abilities are feline." Romulus' powerful eyes peer through the darkness and pinpoint her position. "I have to end this fast."

The girl comes in at him, too fast to block and cuts a line across his stomach with her toes and one through his neck with her fingers. Romulus' grabs her arm and tosses her against a wall, pouncing on her and keeping her pinned.

"She's incredibly strong for her size." He thinks as she starts to lift him off his feet.

She knocks him away and kicks him onto the ground. The girl hooks Romulus' arms with her legs and rips into his chest with her claws. Romulus' cries out as his rib cage is ripped from his body. The girl licks the blood off her hand and purrs.

"That was easy." She chuckles and gets to her feet. "Bleeding hearts tend to taste the best, but they don't put up much of a fight."

"He was right." Romulus' exposed lungs pulse as he laughs. "You are in control."

"You're still alive?" The cat girl asks Romulus. "Why don't you hero types know how to die?"

Romulus gets up to his feet, using a close bye wall as support. His organs slide back into place and his bones start to reform.

"You're a sixth infernal." The cat girl smiles.

"What's an infernal?" Romulus asks.

The cat girl sighs and walks up to him. "And infernal is just a word we use to describe how far someone is in the Xenothium process. The highest form being six and the lowest being one."

"Funny how you guys had the exact same idea Red X did. Names are a little different but that's the same method he used to describe it to us. I'm going to assume you're a six as well."

"I'm one of Crispin's three assassins. We used to be four before your Red X killed off our Agent, but that's all in the past now. And I never cared for the Agent anyway."

"I'm glad to see that the Depraved is as close as I remember." Romulus stands straight, his stomach regrown completely. "But I'm afraid that unless you choose to return to humanity and forsake the Depraved you will be killed here today."

"Kill me?" She asks. "Those are though words. But you can't back them up. You may be a level six but I'm a trained assassin. I know how to kill."

"You don't know how to kill me." Romulus warns her.

"Should I have brought my silver, or perhaps some holy water?" The cat girl mocks him. "You're just a human man like the rest. You will die."

She moves in fast but Romulus catches her hand before she can carve her claws into him.

"You're wrong." He tells her, his voice heavy and course. "I'm not a man." His now golden eyes peer up at her from mutating skin. "I'm a monster."

---

"This isn't possible!" Leon grabs his hair and screams, practically pulling his hair out at the root. "I'm stronger! WHY!? I have the power to kill him so why!?"

"That power doesn't belong to you." Johnny comes back in, bursting through the brick wall behind Leon and catching him by surprise and hooking his arms around him in a bear hug. "You didn't work for it so it isn't really yours. I learnt a long time ago that power you didn't work for is worthless."

"NOOOOOO!" Leon lets off more blasts of heat from his body.

"You borrowed power from Xenothium and the Depraved. Now you're just seeing the difference between that power and mine." Johnny continues squeezing Leon despite the heat eating at his skin. "I may not be at the same level as you in power but at least my power is my own. You don't own any of it. It owns you."

"Let me go! Let me go!" Leon lets out one final blaze and Johnny falls back behind some fallen rubble. Leon's body doesn't stop letting off heat. It burns brighter and brighter until his body becomes covered in flame. "What's going on!?"

"Clean your ears out." Johnny lights a cigarette. "I told you that's not your power. It's Xenothium's power and it looks like it's done with you."

"Help me." Leon reaches out to Johnny.

"I can't do that." Johnny tells him as he hold out a fist. "You already lost to the Xenothium. I'm not smart enough to know what to do. But I can stay with you in your last moments as a warrior who shared a good fight with you. After all I don't see any way of getting out of here and when you blow up I'm probably gonna get incinerated too. I'm sure Alex knew about your time limit and that a fight would run it down to zero. He must've saw it in your eyes."

"I don't want to die alone." Leon cries. "This isn't what I wanted."

"You wont be alone." Johnny tells him.

"Yes I will." Leon fires a blast of flames against one of the walls, melting it away. "Go!" He tells Johnny as He tosses him through the hole. "If you run you'll be able to make it!"

"Thank you." Johnny tells him and runs down the hallway behind the wall.

"I just wanted to be strong." Leon sits down in the middle of the rooms as his body begins to melt away. "Everyone thought you would die. But in the end you turned out to be stronger than me." Leon remembers what Johnny said about me being able to tell that he would die by the end of the battle. "So he left him behind to fight an opponent who could have killed him because he knew that he would last long enough for me to run to my limit and die. Hehehe." Leon places a hand against his face and cries. "Crispin, I hope you're ready for these people. They're something else."

In that moment Leon's body is overtaken by his Xenothium infection and explodes in a burst of brilliant heat and light.

---

Romulus' body twists as his skin crawls over newly formed muscles. His body grows to twice its size and his shoulders expand. His nails reform as sharpened claws and his face contorts into a wolf's snout. His body becomes covered in fur as his clothing shreds and falls to the ground. A long tails extends from the base of his back and he reaches his head into the air, letting loose a terrifying howl.

"This is my true form." Romulus' voice is harsh and deep. His animal form is far larger than before and far more powerful. He towers over the cat girl who looks up at him unimpressed with what she is faced with. "Are you prepared to die from something like this?"

"I wouldn't boast." The cat girl tears her own skin as her body pulsates. Fur grows over his and her body size increases as well. Her small body overflows with muscles and her nails turn to claws. Her face mutates into a monstrous cat-like creature and she stands in her full form. She is only one foot under Romulus' hight. and her cats face appears to grin with malicious intent.

Romulus moves to attack but the second his muscles twitch his arms is cut into pieces by the cats claws. Blood spews from the open wounds like a shower and covers the room. The cat bites into Romulus' shoulder and tosses him into the ground, clawing at his throat. Romulus pushes her off of him and punches her stomach into the ground so hard the cracks make their way to the walls. The cat hisses and tabs her claw through his left eye. Romulus howls in agony but does not fall back. He sinks his teeth into the cats neck but before they can breach skin the cat stabs into his stomach with her claws.

Romulus is disgusted with himself. These vicious acts come so naturally to him in this form. Perhaps that's why he fights so hard to be civilized while he is human. To him this kind of a fight is nothing like when a human fights a human. To him this is more like two wild animals fighting to the death. He would be right to see it that way. The blood spewing from the two combatants is like rain. Romulus has fought many enemies since regaining his control over his werewolf state, but he's never fought anyone this skilled and above that this ferocious.

"The only other time I've felt like this" Romulus sinks his teeth deeper into the cat and shakes her in his mouth, slamming her body into nearby pillars. "was when I fought Alex in the stadium. Thinking back he was more like an animal than I was. To be honest there have been many times I've looks back on the things I've done and wondered if it was all just pointless. Maybe I'm kidding myself when I believe that I can make the world a better place. Alex seems to have given up on the idea of human decency. I don't know what happened to him to make him think the way he does, but I can't help seeing the wisdom in his word."

The cat grabs Romulus' head and tears it off his body.

"Human's can be ferocious. We can be powerful and weak at the same time. We have incredible strength but can't seem to control it." The head falls to the ground. "But he can. Alex Arkham can control it." The headless body reaches out and grabs Romulus' head from the ground. "I saw him do it." The head seals itself back onto the neck and the body remains motionless for a moment.

"What the hell?" The cat asks in terror.

"After shredding my body to pieces Alex Arkham found it in himself to give me a cure to my lycanthrope. That boy who is hiding something dark deep inside himself. Something darker and more terrible than even the monster inside of me, found in himself the goodness to give me my life back."

The cat runs in and stabs Romulus over and over again. He grabs her arms and looks down at her with a kind smile on his wolf face.

"I don't know what is inside of you Alex that makes you say things like humanity is the problem and pushes you to the idea that humans should die, but I know that you yourself are what disproves what you say." Romulus brings the cat in closer and holds her to his chest. "You don't know it. Maybe what's inside of you is preventing you from seeing it but it's obvious. Both in you and the people around you. You saved me and I'm sure you saved Charlotte and Johnny and Mary and who the hell knows how many others. If it weren't for you who knows where we would be today. That's why they're so willing to fallow you. I could only see that after coming down here with you and seeing how loyally they fallow you. They trust you. Don't you see? You are what humanity really is. Not me, or the Depraved, or the darkness. I owe everything to your light, so I'm not going to give up, even if it's someone like this or even Crispin himself. All humans are good. We have the potential to be something great. I'm going to prove that to you some day."

"Let's stop fighting." Romulus tells the cat.

She looks up at him and snarls. "What?"

"There's no reason." He tells her. "The Depraved is dead. Alex is going after Crispin and once he's done this whole branch will fall. After that I'm going to find the other heads and bring them down. The others have already fought their battles. I can feel it. We're winning. It's all over. Why don't you come with me. Red X can cure your Xenothium poisoning and make you stronger. You can live a good li-"

The cat's claws rip his stomach from his body and she cuts him to the ground.

"What makes you think this is over?" She asks him. "Even if Crispin dies Shekari will live on! The next follower will rise up and your people will be hunted like lambs."

"We'll see." Romulus tries to reason with her but she attacks. This time he catches her and pins her arms against the wall. She twists her legs around his head and spins him off balance. As he falls he brings his foot up and knocks her to the ground as he flips back to his feet.

The cat lies unconscious and reverts to her human form.

"Well, I didn't kill her." Romulus smiles and reverts back to his human form as well.

---

I make my way down what I hope is the last corridor and enter into another room. My opponent walks out from the shadows and stands at the ready.

I grin widely under my mask. "Looks like I'm pretty lucky today."

Preview Time!

Alex: "I come off looking like a jerk in the end."

Charlotte: "That's what you get for leaving your friends behind."

Johnny: "So, like…What happened with that cat girl after you knocked her out?"

Anthony: "I've just been carrying her around. She's pretty light in her human form."

Alex: "You look like a kidnapper."

Hotwire: "Why are you guys just standing around? Don't you know we only have two more chapters eft in the Red X Oscura series?"

Alex: "True. But it's Christmas. Can't we take a break?"

Charlotte: "It was Christmas two days ago. Get to work."

Alex: "Fine. Next time on Red X Oscura I face off against an unexpected final opponent before I can see Crispin. Can I defeat this final enemy or will all our battles be for nothing? Does anyone really expect the main character to lose on the second last boss? Find out next time on Red X Oscura Ch 17 In The Case Of Red X."

Charlotte/Alex/Johnny: "Merry Christmas everyone."