The plane’s engine bass was the perfect nauseating soundtrack to the beast's mediations. A warrior-monk dripped in anger… or fear.

  It didn't feel like fear. It felt like catharsis was coming. That problems can now be solved, due to no more than his own competence.

  He sat in the storage well alone, and in the dark. His eyes were closed as he meditated, his head resting on his fingers as his body sat semi-slumped on the side seats. The only light came from the tiny blinking lights of disambiguous circuitry of the walls. He knew not what time it was.

  All he knew is he is en route to Darsa.

  “Get ready Cerberus. Prepare to disembark. We are approaching Darsa, and the place is ablaze.” The pilot told him. Pilots are as rare as diamonds these days with the advent of AI and this weather. Cerberus spoke to him with an imbued respect. “Very good pilot. It has been an honor flying with you.” He says as he opens his eyes and stands, adjusting the parachute as he faces towards the door. His hulking steps make the floor thump as he approaches.

  “It's been a pleasure flying with you. Something tells me we're a bit late. Kick their ass.” The pilot tells him as the door begins to open.

  The room explosively depressurized; raging, rapid wind whipping around the compartments like a torrent tornado. Cerberus stood steadfast, the landmass crawling into view below him.

  He jumps.

  He falls like a brick. The plane flies away from him like an angel.

  He does a flip to reorient himself in the direction in which he falls, his steely face slicing against the wind like a falling comet rips against the atmosphere. He fell fast and unrelenting. The ground could not escape his wrath.

  Finally, barely a hundred meters from the ground, he pulls on the parachute and… it fails. He is simply too heavy to support. He tries again for the fail-safe and it works, barely. It slows his fall to a speedy tumble.

  He fell uncontrollably towards the lower half of the island near the shore. He tried aiming for the top near that helipad, but he cannot control the weather. Only one person can.

  A couple laser shots rip up at him, making his parachute even more useless. He crashes into the ground hard. Smashing against a rock and tumbling through the wall of a random building.

  It hurts like bitch, his leg in particularly throbbing sharply.

  What was even worse was, as he looks up, seeing his own security forces appear to cower.

  “Cer… C— is that you Cerberus?!” One of his men asks, taking cover behind a door. Cerberus picks himself up painfully, a roar in his voice.

  His laser-eyes able to peer into the soul for maximum fear.

  “TAKE THE HINT YOU PATHETIC INSECT. WHY ARE YOU HIDING?!”

  His cyber-filtered voice screamed as he approaches the small man in a march. The man replies.

  “We uh— we have an enemy surrounded, sir.”

  “THEN RIP THEIR FUCKING HEARTS OUT!” Cerberus yells, shoving him out the way like a crashdoll. He was too wide to fit through the door, and so he walks through it like the concrete was made of paper.

  He rack his laser-deagle, and walks towards the fire on the door.

  “FOLLOW OUT OR FACE JUDGMENT.” He orders to his men.

  His ears attune to the sound of a groan of pain through the crackling fire and the wind. He shoved a giant container out the way with one hand, revealing a small man in a big suit of armor. Not wearing anything his men would wear. This is either an attendee, or an intruder.

  He picks the bleeding man up by his torso and holds him at arms length.

  “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?!”

  He yells at the armored man.

  “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?!”

  He yells again with even more fury.

  The man groans and coughs into his helmet.

  “Fuck… run John… I'm a dead man.” The man says.

  “John.” Cerberus thinks. He recalls that John and Amy are the enemy.

  This man is the enemy.

  “Oh… that you are…” Cerberus confirms, his voice digitized from an animal to a machine as he lower the man and drags him towards the shore.

  “Which death do you prefer? To drown or to have your head explode?” Cerberus asks the man, holding him over the water.

  “Go to Hell…” The armored man replies.

  That was the worst fate he could've chosen.

  “Suit yourself.” Cerberus condemns, bringing the man over his head.

  One hand grabs his legs. The other hand grabs his torso.

  With an explosive yank, he rips the man in half, his entrails and organs leaking out in between his discarded parts and onto the dirty floor.

  The man cannot scream as he dies, for his lungs are deflated without a diaphragm. Cerberus basks in the glory of the violence, his hands trembling slightly from the pure electricity of the kill.

  He is right. Because he is might. Yet the revile is short lived as he turns around to the absolute horror of his men who looked at him.

  “Find the rest. Those who do not will suffer the same torment.”

  He promises. His men comply instantly, spreading out like a virus in a compromised immune system.

  And so he begins the ascent towards his initial landing spot, his limp now unavoidable. He might've broken something in the fall.

  That's just too bad. His mind is stronger than his body, and he absolutely needs to prove it.

  There are no attendees in sight during the ascent. He cares not for the architecture. Those left are probably hiding in places unseen, and unheard.

  He no longer cares to protect. He was too late. He now only needs to prove it to himself. Strength. Might. Conviction.

  And the search for stragglers can wait. His mind calls him to the top of this ridge line. Each step cracks the concrete, or tiles; the floor.

  It barely withstood his weight despite him being on the outside. He was cased within his monumental armor, impenetrable to all but the most impractical of weapons. Heavy enough to crush a horse.

  He ascended the wretched slope, making it a quarter of the way until a laser shot grazes his helmet. And then another. And then one more.

  His mechanical eyes lock on to the shot’s signature, spotting a lone man wearing a turtleneck.

  “HOLD YOU FIRE.” Cerberus commands to his troops. They all stop in place as another shot hits his helmet from the same person.

  “TAKE DEFENSIVE POSITIONS!” He yells to them.

  They comply, scurrying to ruined cover behind random objects and geometry. He remains standing, unyielding. He waits for the turtle neck man to pop out one more time… and nails a shot with his laser-deagle.

  He expected a massive hole in his chest. What he saw instead was a yelp of pain, and the man crumble towards some ground cover.

  He hears hostile movement to his left, taking a blind shot to it. As his eyes meet his weapon, he sees he grazed the top of a raised synthetic garden.

  He has had enough, and so turns his attention to whatever it was that shot him. Just as he does, someone pops out in his periphery and begins laying actual lead into him like a torrent.

  Cerberus covers himself with his arms and turn to make his most armored bits face it. Each bullet that hit him was a train of pain, and hundreds did. Yet none managed to penetrate. He fired blindly towards the torrent with his laser-deagle, yet it didn't let up.

  It finally only stopped when the clicking of empty ammo replaced the scream of bullets. And with the opportunity, Cerberus pushed forward.

  He unloaded his laser-deagle into the armored man with the huge gun. His laser-deagle, the most powerful hand cannon ever crafted. And yet it doesn't do much. It just makes the man flinch. The ineffectiveness of his men and his weapons throw Cerberus into a blind rage.

  He throws away his pistol and berserks towards the figure.

  “OPEN FIRE!” Someone yells behind him. He doesn't care.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The armored man needs to die. He flew forward with a speed no one should possess, yet alone a man that big.

  The pain from his fall only heightened his fury, until he landed a concussive punch into the juggernaut, sending him flying back.

  A gun fight erupted in the background, yet he still didn't care.

  He blitzed towards the man and shoved his fist into the ground hard enough to make it shake. Only because he missed, as the man rolled to the side.

  A rotocopter could be heard above. He still does not care.

  He kicks the rolling man away and into an ornament, smashing it to pieces. His run turns to a subdued march as the man raised to his feet again and raised his fist. So it is a fist fight then? Even better.

  Cerberus continued his march until he could take a swing, missing entirely. The man ducked under and shoved his fist into Cerberus's side.

  It makes him chuckle and throw a backhand as relation, knocking the man over yet again.

  But the man just refused to die. He needs to get through the armor.

  Cerberus marches towards the juggernaut again and just barely clips their helmet with a punch. But the man retaliates still, taking a step on Cerberus's knee and kicking him under the chin with all of his might. The strike makes Cerberus recoil and stumble back slightly.

  “I almost felt that!” He proclaims as his enemy remains silent.

  Enough show. He marches unstoppably towards the man again and grapples him by the shoulders, headbutting so hard his visor flickered.

  The man flew into the ground yet again, a crack in his helmet showing.

  Cerberus seizes the opportunity, shoving his finger in and ripping it open. What he saw was a face of pure horror, even through the mask which covered it. But before he could kill his prey, someone throws themselves into him. They bounce off, but it was enough to gain his attention.

  The man who jumped crawled back, unloading what looked like an ancient M16 directly into Cerberus's helmet. It does nothing, and he runs out of ammo quickly. As the man tries to reload, Cerberus decides he's the new target. He lets go of the juggernaut in pursuit of this new man.

  It is the same one he shot earlier. Maybe it is an old man.

  Whoever it is, he gives up the reload and instead uses the gun as a bat.

  “DIE YOU HUGE MOTHERFUCKER! GILBERT, RUN!” He yells.

  Oh so noble, Cerberus thinks to himself.

  There is no realm he is more dominant in than combat.

  The man swings the butt of the stock into Cerberus, bouncing off of him like a stick thrown into a wall. Two swings was more than enough, so Cerberus grabs the rifle on the third swing and snaps it in half over his knee.

  The man drops a surprise grenade at his feet, but Cerberus had learned from last time; he picks it up, and throws it away.

  The man is powerless in the face of Cerberus.

  He tried to run away, but Cerberus could smell it in advance.

  He grabbed the man and spun him around, unmasking him with a pinch. It was an old man. Grayed hair and visible scars.

  “Any last words?” Cerberus asks.

  The old man replies. “Just hurry the fuck up already.”

  Cerberus obliges, picking him up by the head and throwing his body as far as he can, over the edge of the massive cliff face. If the fall doesn't kill him, his neck snapping from the whiplash would have done the trick.

  Cerberus's tunnel vision recedes with the kill, allowing for him to notice the rotocopter coming in to land on the nearby helipad. There will be no escape, he decides. But that wasn't where is focus should've been.

  It should've been on the man who slipped under him and threw open the visor on his indomitable riot helmet. As it was opened, the man unloaded two batteries worth of fully-automatic laser fire into his barely armored face in just a few seconds.

  Cerberus stumbles back, his face on fire, totally blind.

  One hand attempts to put out the fire, while the other swings wildly at this aggressor. The steering of his flesh mixed with the grinding of broken bones and joints is too much to handle, and he lets out a massive cry of pain.

  Next thing he knew, his ears were ringing from an explosion next to him. Then other explosion knocks him to the ground.

  The fire is put out, but the flesh of his face is nearly gone. One half; bare metal. The other half, burn victim. He feels another explosion, his body automatically injecting morphine to ease the pain.

  He is on the ground, deaf and blind. His body seizes up for just a moment to try and recover. But slowly, his hearing returned. And so does a blurry sight.

  Through the torture, he looks up to see the limping juggernaut being hobbled towards the rotocopter by the man who he pursued. He wrote a familiar looking jacket, albeit a different color. It was black and long, akin to the overcoat of his master.

  “JOHN!!!” He yells at the tops of his lungs, his voice somehow echoing upon the ocean. His vision clears more, his sight solely focused on that man, who now looks back.

  Cerberus throws himself up in a frenzy, projectiling towards who he believes is John. John pushes the juggernaut out the way as Cerberus slams into him, the two tumbling across the ground and smacking into the side of the rotocopter.

  Cerberus had one sole focus in life at this moment. Through the pain, through the anguish… kill John as fast as possible. He will not be dominant by such a peasant. Not now. Not ever. He is a wild, berserking animal.

  He strikes are wild and easy to dodge. A folly is unleashed upon him from people he doesn't care about. Only John; who just manages to escape by rolling under him.

  Cerberus stood between John and the rotocopter. John tries to goad Cerberus into rushing, but Cerberus knows better. The volley from behind stops due to its ineffectiveness. Cerberus' seared face and laser eyes looked down on John like a war god.

  “John is it! It has taken too long for us to battle!”

  “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY AND YOU MIGHT LIVE!”

  John yells back with an untold passion and fury. It was close to exceeding Cerberus's. Just close though. Not quite. Even if he sounds as if he has something to fight for… this is Cerberus’s domain.

  And Cerberus is it’s God.

  “Submit to me, and you may die peacefully!”

  Cerberus promises, his word true in this world full of lies.

  Cerberus revels in the intensity of the standoff. John rushes forward, but Cerberus doesn't move. His bluff is called as John stops just outside reaching distance.

  “You cannot kill me John! You have tried, and failed! Submit that which is stronger!”

  “I WON’T SUBMIT TO YOU!” John yells back with a blood curdling scream. “Wrong choice.” Cerberus utters as he extends his hand at a blinding speed. He throws a death punch, but misses again. He is becoming slower.

  His teeth are ground blunt. He needs to end this quick.

  He turns and throws John into the rotocopter like a ragdoll. But he misses the rotor blades which he tried to aim for, instead throwing him into the outside walls of the compartment.

  “NO!” Cerberus yells as John tries to crawl in. The rotocopter begins ascending quickly, and so without thinking, Cerberus leaps towards it.

  He was shot at by the others, some hits steering his torched face.

  One shot in particular incinerates half of his remaining lips, making his speech and slurred mess.

  Cerberus's other hand just manages to catch the floor. He holds on to John with one hand having snatched him out. They rise with the rotocopter, only because Cerberus holds on with the other. They all hold fire as he is the only thing keeping John from falling. One of them yells at him.

  “YOUR FACE IS EXPOSED! WE'LL SHOOT IT DEAD IF YOU DARE DROP HIM! THROW HIM UP!”

  “So you can shoot me anyway?” Cerberus bargains, his voice going to voice box mode due to his destroyed face. It was more skull than flesh.

  And yet still, he spoke. That wasn't until another piped up.

  “BRING JOHN UP AND WE'LL LET YOU DOWN SAFELY!”

  The rotocopter flew above the ocean, just past the massive cliff face. Turbulence made it hard for Cerberus to hold, and yet, he does.

  “You cannot bargain with me! I am a monument to your weakness!” Cerberus declares.

  One of the men in the compartment lowered his weapon. Cerberus figures he's about to whisper, and so attunes his ears.

  “SERaMACs, get closer to the land so John doesn't fall far.”

  “THE MACHINE AIDS YOU?! I SHOULD'VE CRUSHED IT MYSELF!” Cerberus yells at the news. Yet the rotocopter begins veering towards the ground. It was out of Cerberus's control. He wasn't having it.

  “IF YOU DROP JOHN WE'LL SHOOT YOU DEAD!” One of them yells again.

  Cerberus smiles, with what little he can. Cerberus closes his eyes. Cerberus shakes his head.

  “Oh… your biggest mistakes... weaklings... was thinking I fear death. And the other?… Telling me this was John.”

  Cerberus glances down to the terrified John, then back up to his crew.

  “This ends on my terms.”

  “NO!” One of them yells.

  Cerberus lets go of the rotocopter.

  He and John begin falling towards the bottom rocks of the cliff side.

  “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” John yells as they enter free fall to their deaths.

  “Don't be scared John. I was right.” Cerberus told him before they hit the ground. Before Cerberus let go, he asked John one final question.

  “Have you ever heard Duster? This is the price of success.”

  Cerberus falls back first. He is impaled on a spire of a rock, tearing halfway down onto hit. John his the ground right next to Cerberus with a crunchy splat.

  As Cerberus’s systems begin to shut down, he looks over to John.

  The world is getting darker. The rotocopter, getting closer.

  His senses are dimming. His hearing slowly fades.

  The last thing he sees his John lying, unmoving. His various limbs contorted from the height. He landed on a flat bit, front first it seems.

  Cerberus's smiles as his vision fades. So too fades the smell of sulfur.

  So too fades the pains of his broken limbs and… fear.

  So too, was the last to fade— his hearing— as he utters his last words.

  “Take me away, birds of the forest. I want to see you for once. To listen to your beautiful song.”

  His last words faded into absolution.

  “Take me away… I am young. Me, and the birds. Take me... awaaaaay…”