Simon and Maxwell stood in front of the monstrous Shawn, all three of them prepared to fight. Each of them had eyes filled with determination.

Shawn was filled with rage. He had failed to kill Maxwell at least three times, and his mind was beginning to break. He was the bringer of death! Nobody could escape the blade of Shawn the Slicer! Not even an idiot with a mechanical arm and his magical little friend. That magic user was also annoying. Without him there, Maxwell would have definitely died by now!

Maxwell was ready. He was ready to fight alongside the man he had once fought against. This man, who had thought to protect others before himself, who helped him despite what had happened. Maxwell had come to an important decision, but first, Shawn had to be defeated. He was a despicable creature, and even without that strange arm, Maxwell would never consider him human.

Simon was determined. He had seen Shawn’s wanted poster many times, and he had always been disturbed by him. How can somebody kill innocents with a smile on their face? How can somebody take such pleasure in the pain of others? Shawn was going down.

The three men all rushed at once, prepared to attack.

* * *

Lucy ran towards the building that she had been told Simon was in, but it was slow going. People were running from the smoking structure, and were running into her and each other in the chaos. She struggled to push her way through the crowd, and almost missed a cry of pain come from nearby her.

“Ack!”

She saw an elderly man fall over, but the people around him kept running. She quickly rushed to where the man was, picking him up and pulling him out of the crowd. She carefully set him down, and he shakily rose to his feet.

“Oh my… Thank you kindly young miss. I thought I was a goner there.”

“Yes, you’re welcome, whatever. Is Simon okay?”

“Simon?” The man’s eyes widened, “What do you know of him?”

“I know that he is up in that building that people are running from, so tell me what the hell is happening!”

“Monsters! Monsters burst into the building! I barely got out, but I think Simon and Maxwell are still in there!”

“Maxwell? Who the… you know what, I don’t care. I’m going to help.”

She started running towards the building again, as a young man ran to help the older one, screaming out “Eldest!”. She unholstered Salvation and grit her teeth.

“I hope he left some for me.”

* * *

Simon was struggling to hold his own against the numerous arms that flew through the air. He thought that this would be more like fighting one person, but each of the arms moved like they were independent of one another. The moment he dodged one clawed hand, another one tried to hit him from the side.

Shawn himself looked relaxed compared to what his arms were doing. He strolled slowly forwards, dust and sand billowing and spiraling around him like a small tempest. Meanwhile, his collection of left arms stretched and twisted in strange angles.

“You two can’t keep this up forever!”

He was right, and that frustrated Simon. He was getting nowhere dodging like this. It was like he was fighting Maxwell all over again. Speaking of Maxwell, he wasn’t having any better luck. Simon glanced over to see him charging. Again.

“Fight me you WRETCH!”

In response, one of Shawn’s arms backhanded Maxwell across the room. Then another two pointed their claws and launched at him. Maxwell stood up and let loose two punches that caused the arms to jerk backwards with a breaking sound. The hands hung loose at the wrist for a moment before snapping back into place.

While Simon was distracted, an arm began hurtling towards his face. In a moment of self-preservation, Simon slashed his sword through the air in from of him. Somehow, he was able to sever its hand. The twitching appendage fell to the ground, and spasmed for a moment before dissolving into black smoke.

Simon let out a sigh and a smile. He glanced up at Shawn, but was disturbed to see a smile of his face as well. A bead of sweat rolled down Shawn’s face as the now handless arm began to twitch. Tendrils of sinew and flesh began to emerge from the stump, twisting together and stretching until a new hand was formed at the end of it.

“Did you think it would be that easy, magic boy?”

“My name is Simon!”

Simon took up his sword and ran at the murderer. As he did an arm tried to strike him, but he was able to leap into the air to avoid it, with the help of a little lightning. He raised his sword to attack Shawn, but as he did two more arms hurtled towards him. Their palms struck Simon in the chest, and sent him flying backwards into the far wall.

He coughed and tried to stand up, but his legs didn’t seem to work properly. They kept shaking, and it felt like his chest was about to cave in on itself. He could hear Maxwell yelling, but he couldn’t tell what he was saying over the ringing in his ears. His eyes luckily worked, and he could see what Maxwell was doing.

The larger man was running at Shawn, and was fighting him with everything in his power. His mechanical arm smashed into Shawn’s arms over and over again. Dust billowed into the air as metal destroyed flesh. He seemed to be making headway. He was destroying arms faster than they could regenerate.

Maxwell’s arm pulled back, and he let it loose. His fist struck the palm of an arm that had been heading towards him. The arm shuddered, and then burst. Flesh and bone flew through the air, and Maxwell finally made his way to Shawn.

“Now, you FALL!”

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing…”

Maxwell’s eyes bulged, and blood slowly began to seep into his shirt. Shawn’s human arm pulled back, removing his knife from Maxwell’s chest. As he did so, each of his monstrous arms pointed their claws at him. The sharp bones plunged into Maxwell from all sides, and his mouth opened in shock.

Shawn reached his human arm up and stroked Maxwell’s cheek gently. Blood trickled from Maxwell’s mouth. The arms retracted, and Maxwell’s body collapsed to the ground. Shawn smiled and turned to Simon.

“Now I only have magic boy left…”

“Maxwell!”

Simon finally got to his feet, but as he did, a massive hand smacked into his chest, pinning him to a wall. Simon pulled one of his arms free and tried to push the hand off, but all it did in return was squeeze.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that. I want to enjoy this as much as possible!”

Shawn’s face got up close to Simon’s. He slowly ran his tongue across his teeth.

“Tell you what. I’ll give you a set of last words! I’ll make sure that the people know them. Go on, what is it?”

“Well,” Simon struggled for breath, “I guess I have some last words.”

“Oh, well let’s hear them then!”

“I don’t know… It’s a little… Shocking!”

Simon thrust his free arm forwards, and a bolt of lightning struck Shawn in the chest. Shawn lurched back, and the hand on Simon released its grip. Shawn’s body convulsed on the ground, and his arms flailed around wildly. Simon sat on the ground, trying to catch his breath.

Shawn stood up and looked at Simon with eyes filled with pure, unbridled rage. He didn’t even let out a quip or a threat. He instead raised his knife, and leapt forwards. Simon knew he wouldn’t be able to react in time, and he closed his eyes as the blade quickly closed the gap between itself and his neck.

*Clang!*

Simon’s eyes opened, and he saw a large, muscular form standing in front of him. Blood pooled from numerous wounds, but the figure still had the strength to put himself between Simon and Shawn’s knife. Shawn’s knife pressed against Maxwell’s arm.

“You… you aren’t going to kill us off that easily… you FOOL!”

Shawn slowly stepped backwards, his arms moved through the air as he could barely control his rage. Maxwell slowly slumped to the ground, and Simon stood up and moved to stand between him and the enraged Shawn.

“Why won’t you die… everyone dies! But not you two! No!”

All of Shawn’s arms pressed together, and they all pulled back. Their claws pointed at the two wounded men, and they all began to rocket towards them.

“This is going to end NOW!!!”

As he said that, a bright golden light filled the room. All of Shawn’s arms fell to the ground, and they writhed like angry snakes as they dissolved into smoke. Shawn raised his human hand to the stump of sinew on his shoulder. The flesh at the end was singed black. Beads of sweat rolled down his face and his face began to look more and more worried.

“This is going to end now, huh? Well I guess you’re right about that.”

Shawn turned slowly, and revealed a figure standing in the center of the hole in the wall. She rose her gun to her face and blew some smoke from the top of it. Simon and Maxwell looked at the woman, and a smile spread across Simon’s face.

“Lucy!”

“Wait, isn’t that the woman…”

“Simon! What the hell are you doing!”

“Um…”

“We came here to get supplies, not get into whatever kind of mess this is!”

“It’s not my fault!”

Shawn glanced between the two before fixating on Lucy. He clutched his stump and raised his knife.

“I don’t know what you did to my arm, but now you DIE wench!”

He ran at Lucy, who seemed frozen in shock. Simon brought his leg up to begin running at Shawn, when he felt a hand grab him by the neck of his shirt. Maxwell brought back his arm and flung Simon forwards.

Simon barely had time to realize what was happening as he flew towards Shawn, but when he did, he brought his sword up, and aimed it at Shawn’s head. The blade plunged into the back of his skull, and Simon fell to the ground.

Shawn screamed in pain. Simon’s blade slowly dissolved, and Shawn was left with a hole going from the back of his head to his right eye. Blood dripped from the wound, but it was thick and dark, almost black in fact. Shawn clenched his knife until his knuckles turned white, and he ran at Lucy. Lucy rose Salvation and fired at him, but missed as he leapt over her head. She whirled around to watch him run away from the building. Shawn stopped at the edge of a group of trees, and turned back to face the three people who had injured him so horribly.

“I hate to admit it… but you win this round. I will leave you for now, but know this. There are powers in this world that you don’t understand. You would have been better off dying by my hands. Especially you magic boy.”

He turned back and ran into the trees. Simon stood up to try and run after him, but Lucy quickly grabbed him before he could collapse.

“For the love of… Simon. You’ve run yourself ragged again. You need to just let it go for now.”

“But… he…”

“It’s over. Deal with it.”

“I… yeah. You’re right.”

“Come on, let’s grab that big fella and get him to some medical attention. It’s time to move on.”

“Hey Lucy?”

“What?”

“Are… are we cool?”

She smiled, “Yes Simon. We’re cool. But you know a good way to keep it like that? Don’t get wrapped up in battles with psycho monster men.”

He smiled back, “I can’t guarantee that.”