The woman who burst through the doors of Mercees Department Store was running for her life.
She was perhaps in her mid-twenties, standing around 5'6" with a slender build that was currently being
pushed to its limits. Her aesthetic was unmistakably goth—black hair with purple streaks, pale skin that
might have been natural or might have been enhanced with makeup, dark eyeliner smudged from sweat
and tears. She wore a black dress with purple accents, torn fishnet stockings, and heavy boots that
thudded against the floor as she ran.
Her name was Sarah Bane, though Jason didn't know that yet. All he knew, in that moment, was that she
was terrified.
"Help!" she screamed, her voice raw with panic. "Please, someone help me!"
Behind her, pouring through the doors like a pack of predators, came six men. They were all beastkin of
various types, their animal features prominent and their expressions twisted with malicious intent. They
moved with the confidence of predators who had cornered their prey, spreading out slightly to cut off any
escape routes.
"There's nowhere to run, bitch!" one of them yelled, a panther-kin with sleek black fur and yellow eyes.
"Just give up already!"
The apparent leader of the group was a wolfkin, tall and muscular with gray fur and cruel amber eyes. He
had the swagger of someone used to getting his way through intimidation and violence. His voice carried
over the others as he shouted: "That's right, Sarah! Thought you could run from me? Thought you could
escape? You're ours, baby! Time to accept your fate and be our gang's trap whore!"
The other customers in the store had frozen, some backing away toward the walls, others looking around
frantically for exits. The peaceful morning atmosphere had been shattered completely.
Sarah was running blindly, her eyes wide with terror, not really seeing where she was going. She burst
through the doorway into the outdoor and garden department, where Jason and Tina were still standing
near their newly completed display.
She didn't notice Jason at first, didn't see him standing there. She was looking back over her shoulder at
her pursuers, and she ran straight into him.
The impact wasn't hard—Jason's enhanced body barely registered it—but Sarah bounced off him and fell
backward, landing hard on her butt. She let out a small cry of pain and surprise, then looked up.
And in that moment, something shifted in the universe.
Sarah Bane had been a worshipper of the Dark Lady—the goddess Solana—for most of her life. In her
darkest moments, in the depths of her captivity and abuse, she had prayed to her goddess for salvation,
for deliverance, for someone to save her from the nightmare her life had become.
Looking up at Jason now, backlit by the morning sun streaming through the windows, his powerful form
radiating strength and confidence, it was as if fate itself was singing. As if all her prayers to the Dark Lady
had manifested in this one perfect moment, in this one perfect man.
Jason looked down at her, his expression concerned but calm. "You good, lady?" he asked, his voice
steady and reassuring. He knelt down, extending his hand to help her up.
Sarah stared at him, momentarily forgetting her terror, forgetting the men chasing her. She saw kind eyes,
a strong jaw, a presence that radiated safety and power. She reached up, her hand trembling, and tookhis.
His grip was firm, warm, and as he pulled her to her feet with effortless strength, she felt something she
hadn't felt in a very long time: hope.
But the moment was shattered as the six gang members burst into the outdoor department.
"There you are, SLUT!" the wolfkin leader roared, his eyes blazing with fury and possessive rage.
"Thought you could run from me? Thought you could hide?"
Jason, Tina, and Sarah all turned to face the hostiles. The six men spread out in a loose semicircle,
blocking the exit. They were all armed—some with knives, one with a short club, another with what looked
like brass knuckles. They had the look of street thugs, dangerous and unpredictable.
Jason sighed, a sound of mild annoyance rather than fear. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck from
side to side, and glanced back at the two women.
"I got this," he said calmly. "Won't take long."
Tina's eyes widened, but she nodded, pulling Sarah back toward the relative safety of the plant displays.
Sarah wanted to protest, wanted to tell this brave, foolish man that these were dangerous criminals, that
he should run, that he should save himself. But something in his demeanor, in the absolute confidence he
radiated, made her hold her tongue.
Jason walked toward the group of gang members, his movements casual, unhurried. He looked like a
man going for a stroll, not someone facing down six armed thugs.
The wolfkin leader—Trex Carver, though Jason didn't know his name yet—stared at Jason with a mixture
of confusion and anger. "Who the fuck do you think you're supposed to be?" he snarled. "This doesn't
concern you, pretty boy. Walk away now and you might keep your teeth."
Jason didn't answer. He just kept walking, closing the distance between them with steady, measured
steps.
The panther-kin, perhaps more impulsive than his companions, decided to act first. With a snarl, he
lunged forward, his clawed hand swiping toward Jason's face in a vicious arc that would have torn open a
normal man's throat.
But Jason was far from normal.
He moved with speed that seemed impossible, his enhanced reflexes making the panther-kin's attack
look like it was happening in slow motion. His hand shot out, catching the panther-kin's wrist in mid-swing.
The grip was like iron, completely immobilizing the attack.
The panther-kin's eyes widened in shock and pain as Jason's fingers tightened, crushing the bones in his
wrist with casual ease. Before he could even scream, Jason's other hand came up in a devastating
uppercut.
The punch connected with the panther-kin's jaw with the force of a sledgehammer. There was a sickening
crunch of breaking bone, and then the panther-kin's head simply exploded.
It wasn't a metaphor. His head literally burst apart like an overripe melon, skull fragments and brain
matter spraying upward and outward. The force of the blow continued through, shattering his spine, and
his body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Blood and gore splattered across the
floor, across the nearby plants, across the other gang members.
For a moment, there was absolute silence. Everyone—the remaining gang members, Tina, Sarah, even
the customers who had cautiously approached to see what was happening—stared in shock at the
headless corpse and the man who had created it."What the fuck!" one of the gang members finally hollered, his voice high with panic and disbelief. "What
the FUCK!"
Trex Carver stared at the body of his companion, then at Jason, then back at the body. His face went
through a rapid series of expressions—shock, fear, anger, and finally a kind of desperate bravado.
"Let's gut him!" Trex shouted, his voice cracking slightly. "He's in the way! All of you, together! NOW!"
The remaining four gang members—not counting Trex himself—hesitated for just a moment, but fear of
their leader apparently outweighed their fear of Jason. They charged forward as a group, weapons raised,
snarling and shouting.
They were no match.
Jason moved like a force of nature, like a hurricane given human form. His fists were weapons of mass
destruction, each punch delivered with surgical precision and overwhelming force.
A bearkin with a club swung at Jason's head. Jason ducked under the swing, stepped inside the bearkin's
guard, and drove his fist into the man's chest. The punch went through the ribcage like it was made of
paper, Jason's hand emerging from the bearkin's back in a spray of blood and viscera. He pulled his hand
back out and the bearkin collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.
A foxkin with brass knuckles tried to hit Jason from the side. Jason caught the punch with his open palm,
then grabbed the foxkin's arm and pulled. The arm tore free from the socket with a wet, tearing sound,
and Jason used it like a club to bludgeon the foxkin's head. The first hit shattered the skull. The second
and third were just for emphasis, reducing the head to a pulpy mess.
A badgerkin with a knife tried to stab Jason in the back. The blade struck Jason's skin and simply
stopped, unable to penetrate. Jason turned, almost casually, and backhanded the badgerkin. The force of
the blow sent the man flying backward, his body hitting the wall with enough force to leave a crater in the
plaster. He slid down, leaving a smear of blood, his neck bent at an impossible angle.
The last of the regular gang members, a weaselkin, tried to run. He made it perhaps three steps before
Jason was on him. Jason grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face into the ground.
Once. Twice. Three times. By the fourth impact, there was nothing left of the weaselkin's face but a red
smear on the floor.
The entire fight had taken less than a minute. Four more bodies lay scattered around the outdoor
department, blood pooling and mixing with the soil from the plant displays. The air smelled of copper and
death.
Trex Carver stood alone now, his bravado completely shattered. He stared at Jason with wide, terrified
eyes, his body trembling. He tried to back away, but his legs didn't seem to want to work properly.
"Wait," he said, his voice shaking. "Wait, please. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't—"
He tried to run, finally, his survival instincts overriding his paralysis. But Jason was faster.
Jason closed the distance in a single step, his right fist already in motion. The punch was a straight jab,
delivered with perfect form and devastating power. It hit Trex square in the face, and Jason's fist went
through.
Through the front of Trex's skull, through his brain, through the back of his skull, emerging on the other
side in a spray of blood and bone fragments. Jason's arm was buried up to the elbow in Trex's head, and
for a moment they stood there, frozen in a grotesque tableau.
Then Jason pulled his arm back, and Trex's body began to fall. But Jason wasn't done.His left hand came across in a vicious swipe, fingers extended like blades. The strike caught Trex at the
neck, and the supernatural strength behind it was enough to slice clean through. Trex's head and neck
separated from his body, the head tumbling to the side while the body collapsed forward.
Jason let the head fall to the wayside, rolling to a stop near one of the plant displays. Blood fountained
from the neck stump for a moment before the heart stopped pumping.
Jason stood in the center of the carnage, breathing normally, not even winded. His clothes were
splattered with blood, and gore dripped from his hands, but he seemed completely unbothered by it. He
looked back at the two women who had witnessed everything.
Tina and Sarah stood together, their eyes wide, their mouths slightly open. But there was no fear in their
expressions. Instead, their eyes held something else entirely—awe, admiration, desire. If Jason had been
able to see the cartoon hearts that seemed to float around their heads, he wouldn't have been surprised.
They had just watched him dispatch six dangerous criminals with the ease of someone swatting flies.
They had seen his power, his strength, his absolute dominance. And in this world, where strength was
respected and power was attractive, their reaction was entirely natural.
Jason cleared his throat, breaking the spell. "Tina," he said, his voice calm and businesslike despite the
blood covering him, "I need you to lock off the outdoor and garden department. Take Sarah to the staff
lounge and help her calm down. I have some authorities to call."
Tina nodded quickly, snapping out of her daze. "Yes, of course. Right away." She took Sarah's arm gently.
"Come on, let's get you somewhere safe."
Sarah allowed herself to be led away, but her eyes never left Jason until they turned the corner and he was out of sight.