Slaughter
His shadow streaked across the rooftops.
The ruins beneath groaned as he leapt, dust spilling from their old bones, crumbling under the weight of something far beyond human.
A dull night, he mused.
His eyes swept across the streets below, drinking in the scene in a heartbeat. The city sprawled out like a rotting carcass, its bones jutting up from cracked asphalt. Scavengers and survivors scuttled through the rubble, vermin eking out an existence in the husk of civilization
They froze as he passed overhead.
That was instinct. Ancient. The stillness of prey beneath the gaze of a predator.
Fitting.
Their lives were dim, flickering things. He could snuff them out within an instant. He might’ve, had he been bored enough to bother.
A twitch, his head tilted, feathers ruffling in the wind. A sound cut through the night air. Sharp. Distant. An explosion, followed by the faint chorus of chaos.
Perfect.
He launched again. The rooftop buckled beneath as a brief moment of pressure overwhelmed it.
The wind howled past him as he soared, a dark streak against the canvas of the night.
A flicker of interest stirred.
A worthy fight?
Perhaps tonight would not be so empty after all.
The thought curled through him like warm blood in cold water. He’d been... restless. No art to capture, no worthy blood to spill. Just the drag of days past.
Maybe, afterward, he’d do another food tour. There was that one cart from last time, he even let the vendor live.
The sounds sharpened as he neared. Gunfire, Screams, Death. Territorial dispute likely. His speed bled away, movements smoothing, turning silent. He adjusted his approach, arcing towards one of his perches.
Convenient.
Talons bit into corroded metal as he scaled the tower with feline grace. Settling cross-legged at its summit. He bathed in the moonlight for a moment, admiring the scenery below.
Then, he focused.
Below, a man stood alone. Encircled by a half-dozen shooters. Bullets tore through him, explosives charred his skin, only for it to knit back together in seconds.
Palmer.
Empire 88’s regenerative pitbull.
Sloppy form. Still no control in his footwork. Punches broadcast a second too early. The only reason he’d survived this long was luck and a healing factor.
Revenant glanced sideways to where his paints were hidden behind a corroded panel. Considered them.
No. Not tonight.
This wasn't art.
With a whispering crack, the air bent. Revenant launched from the tower, a jagged streak of motion. He slammed into Palmer mid-lunge, the impact a singular, deafening chord that echoed throughout the battlefield.
Flesh ruptured. Bone gave way. Palmer’s shoulder exploded, the arm pinwheeling off into the distance.
Already, the stump bubble and warped. His body sprinting to mend what was lost.
A fist hammered into Revenant’s chest. A crack in the air, the shock rippled through his body, concrete splintering into a spiderweb of fractures beneath his feet.
Amusing.
The brute snarled, rage boiled in his eyes. As if that mattered.
Revenant’s talons gleamed.
His claws swept forward in a clean, arcing slash. Palmer’s torso split open, a red line carving through his being. A kick struck him. His lower half skidded across the ground, crashing into a concrete barrier with a wet crunch
Another blow whistled past Revenant's head, the air ripped behind him displaced by the force. Had it landed, it might've mattered.
Crush. Regenerate. Rip again.
The rhythm set in, a slow evisceration.
His body tried to keep pace, adapting, denser muscle, thicker bones. It reminded Revenant, faintly, of his own origin. The same continual ascent towards perfection.
Palmer's fists kept coming, each strike screaming through the air. Wild. Imprecise. He flowed through them like smoke, the blows mearly grazing his fur.
Promising, perhaps.
But still beneath him.
Claws sliced deep into him, again and again until there was naught left but his torso and head.
With calm detachment, Revenant drove his arm through Palmer’s skull. Bone fractured like rotted wood as his talons wrapped around a pulsating organ, the corona pollentia. The anomalous biology that made parahumans what they were.
Palmer writhed.
Revenant’s grip tightened.
A muffled squelch, then a pop. The core burst in his talons like overripe fruit.
Palmer stilled.
Regenerators always thought themselves immortal.
They never were.
Revenant stood in the silence that followed. The field below was abandoned, emptied of motion. The others had fled long before the final blow.
He flexed his talons clean.
No inspiration tonight.
But the form was still there.
He would remember the movement, the way muscle fought to rise again, the expression of futility in Palmer’s last glare.
Perhaps, with the right colors, it might yet become something.
With a final glance at the remains, Revenant slipped back into the wind, vanishing into the labyrinth of the Zone.
Still searching.
Still waiting.
For beauty.
For a challenge.
For something worthy.