Hunt For Power- Part 2 (Patreon)

Engorged on new serum and pumped up bigger than ever, Warwick is ready to take Zaun for himself. Enjoy, and thanks for your support!

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Singed couldn't help but glance nervously over his shoulder. He had worked under pressure many times before, but Warwick… Warwick was different. Every time he glanced back at the hulking monstrosity looming behind him, he saw those hungry eyes glowing in the gloom of his lab staring back at him.

"I'm not going to work any faster with your eye on me," he finally grumbled.

Warwick scoffed, standing to his full height. Already a fearsome creature, the wolf-like Warwick had grown into a massive brute of muscle, his body brimming with overwhelming strength. "You'll work faster if I tell you to. You don't understand, Singed. I can think clearly now. I won't kill you, so long as I need you. So make sure you're useful."

Singed grimaced, turning back to the sprawling table crowded with alchemical apparatuses, books, and tinctures. "That bear you took down won't be the only one, you know. When Eramis and Crimson died, all their captains came to me— apparently you inspired them. Now, the three remaining chembarons have new pets, courtesy of myself."

"I figured as much. I smelled something interesting in the air— new quarry, fresh blood." Warwick furrowed his brow, crossing his arms over his powerful chest. "Why are you warning me? Trying to cover your own hide, or have you been scared into acting in good faith?"

Singed turned to face Warwick, carrying a large vial of the potent serum the chimeric wolf so coveted. "I don't like seeing my work thrown out so soon."

"It's a sensation you'll have to get used to," Warwick growled, snatching the serum out of Singed's hands. "I'm going to take on all three of the chembaron's pets if I have to. And I will win. Even if strength weren't a factor, no one knows these streets like I do— Zaun is my hunting ground, and no one else's."

"I believe some philosophers would warn about pride before the fall," Singed quipped, until the alchemist felt Warwick's knife-like claw press into his cheek.

"I'll take lectures on vices from many people, but not from you," the wolf growled. "You made me, you made those other beasts— as far as I'm concerned, I'm here to make sure you clean up your mess."

He let Singed go, then reached for the apparatus of wires and copper machinery grafted on to his sprawling landscape of his back. Warwick slipped the serum into a receptacle and grunted, followed by the hiss of the machinery. The wolf snarled sharply as he felt the prick into his bloodstream, followed by a rush of electric power.

His heart began to pound faster and faster as the serum mixed with his blood, feeding his muscles as they began to split and reform, bigger, harder, and stronger. Adrenaline surged, and Warwick let out a mighty roar. He stomped forward, clattering Singed's equipment as his body again began to grow larger. The chimeric wolf was already immense and awesome to behold, his musculature thickly layered and mountainous.

Then, his body began to tremble. His flexed and tensed muscles tightened and then expanded, his arms swelling large as hills. His chest pushed out in leaps with his frantic, heavy breathing, pectoral muscles like immense slabs pushing and surging up and out. His stance widened as his legs thickened out like steel-enforced columns. He was wider than he was tall, a great bulwark against every criminal element in Zaun.

Warwick huffed, his pecs rising up to press against his chin. The thick tendons in his bull-like neck tensed as he glanced to the side, his shoulders sprawling out like a picturesque cityscape. He lifted his titanic arm and flexed, watching his bicep swell and rise up like a tower.

"Pleased?" Singed asked flatly. "If you're still not satisfied, you can still grow larger still— though I can't speak to the stability."

"Hrrngh." Warwick grunted, entranced by his own enormity. He could feel the strength bristling up inside him as if he had thrown a switch, and he was lighting up like a marquee. "I can handle it. Easily."

"I don't suppose you would be so kind as to pay me for my services, this time around?" Singed asked, daring to meet Warwick's eyes. "Given you're so pleased with the results."

Warwick snarled, his hand moving with surprising swiftness despite his bulk as his fingers wrapped around Singed's neck like an iron vice. He lifted the alchemist off his feet with ease. "This time around? You mean, as opposed to last time, when you drugged me and mutated me against my will?"

"It worked out for you, didn't it?" Singed choked. "I mean, look at you! Don't you think yourself magnificent?" The alchemist wrapped his hands around Warwick's fingers, futile as it was.

Warwick leaned in, his pecs reaching Singed long before his snout did. He snarled and the alchemist flinched, then the wolf tossed him against the wall. "Don't worry, Singed. This has worked out for me— you'll get something worthwhile, once my position is secure at the top of the food chain."

Singed gasped for air, rubbing his neck. "And if you are unsuccessful?"

Warwick smirked. "Do you not have faith in your work anymore, Singed?" He curled his arms and pressed them against his thick hips, engorged, wing-wide lats pressing against his pumped biceps as his chest puffed up again.

"I do," the alchemist coughed. "But you forget you're going up against my work."

"Duly noted. But they are copies— me?" He pumped his arm again, patting the broadside of his bicep. "I'm the original. And you've ensured I'm the strongest of them all, haven't you?"

Singed thinned his lips, nodding. "Yes, I have."

"Then there's no more need for speculation. When we next meet, Singed, Zaun will be in the palm of my hand."

A day and a night fell on Zaun when the remaining chem-barons met in one of their hidden enclaves, this one hosted by Wencher Spindlaw in one of his cavernous warehouses. Eleven chem-barons ruled over Zaun, sharing power in an uneasy peace, before Crimson and Erasmis died. Now that two of their number had died, the dam had broken— the war had claimed two more chem-barons, though the public didn't yet know it, and all but three had gone into hiding.

"We can't keep this up, Wencher," Renata Glasc, the mistress of Glasc Industries, snapped. "We need to call a truce."

"You can call a truce anytime you want, Renata." Wencher growled. "Surrender, and we can unite forces."

"You must be joking," Renata scoffed, leaning back in her chair.

"Being a chem-baron, it's a perilous position," Wencher shrugged.

"Hah!" Saito Kentada, the only other chem-baron at the meeting, scoffed. "Perilous? Look around you, Wencher— it's damn suicidal. Renata's right. We know why we're safe. We're the only ones with monsters at our beck and call, and that's the only certain insurance against what's out there on the streets. If you haven't noticed, Eramis' captain, Petrok, Velveteen— they were hunted down. If we don't want to be next, we need to have a united front— pool our resources, and kill the Blood Hunter."

"And who's going to do that? You, Kentada?" Warwick's deep, rumbling voice growled. The wolf dropped down from the rafters where he had been prowling, hitting the table the chem-barons had been meeting at and crushing it under his sheer brawn.

Wencher leapt back, staring at Warwick, mouth agape. "Hell, he's even bigger than I thought!" He exclaimed. "Get the other beasts in here!"

There was a series of roars and howls. Bounding out of dark corners of the warehouse were three hulking creatures, powerfully built and monstrous. A mix of fur, scales, fangs, horns and claws, they all possessed thick and sinewy muscle, and a bloodthirsty disposition.

"Bring me Warwick's head!" Wencher shouted.

The first beast to charge Warwick, with slick green scales and a row of dagger-sharp fangs, lunged for the wolf, jaw snapping on his shield-sized shoulder. Warwick hissed at the stinging bite, but his sheer brawn ensured it was only a flesh wound; he tipped over backwards, slamming the reptilian chimera down on the floor as his sprawling landscape of a back slammed into him. He rolled off of the chimera and grappled him, pinning the beast's face between an engorged bicep and his canyon of a chest. Another roar, as a beast with bull-like horns charged Warwick, intending to gore him in the side. The wolf let go of the reptile and dodged the bull's charge, thumping his deep chest and pumping his swollen arms.

"Come on!" he roared, daring the bull to charge again. The beast returned the wolf's roar and charged again. Warwick stood his ground, but then at the last second, he flexed his wheel-wide thighs to dig in his heels and held out his arm, pulsing his anvil-thick triceps and swinging all his might in a punch that struck the bull right in the gut, his charge ending in a sudden and terrible crash. The bull hit the ground in a huge shudder, Warwick hanging on just long enough to snap off one of his horns.

"Stay down, if you know what's good for you," he snarled. But then, a predatory snarl echoed across the warehouse. A lion-like chimera charged out of the shadows and tackled Warwick from the back, leaping onto his back, claws snapping through the tubes of his serum's apparatus, the source of his strength.

"Bastard!" Warwick howled in pain. His head was swimming— half his supply was seeping away, spilling on the floor. He tried shaking the lion off, but the reptile had recovered, and latched on to his arm, dragging him down.

In a split second, Warwick grasped with his free hand, but he felt a pit hit his stomach as he realized to his horror, his own engorged muscles were getting in the way, and he couldn't reach all the way across the swells of his back.

"Damn it!" He snarled. He just had to reach the serum on his back for another jolt, and he could win.

"What's wrong, Blood Hunter?" the lion snarled in a deep, raspy voice. "Little thirsty?"

Warwick's vision began to blur, the chem-barons cautiously optimistic as they rose from their seats and watched intently. The wolf groaned, but then, summoning the last of his strength, he slammed his back against the warehouse wall, smashing the lion against heavy brickwork. Their combined bulk nearly broke through the stone, but instead, it had the desired effect— the chimeric predator's own apparatus shattered, and the last vial of serum fell free. Snapping off the lid, Warwick downed it in one go, wincing at the sour taste— and hoping drinking it would suffice.

He didn't have long to wait. His whole body shuddered, and his senses came back into sharp focus. He inhaled sharply as his chest inflated, and his arms inflated with renewed vigor. His boulder-sized biceps rose like mountain peaks, and his shoulders added to the sloping, sprawling landscape of his immense physique. Even with the other two beasts weighing him down, Warwick let out an adrenaline-fuelled roar and stood to his full height. Thick veins snaked across his bloated muscles like flooded rivers over rich fields, and with a mighty shove he threw his enemies off of him. The bull he ended with with one final punch to the face, striking him with the blunt force of a cannonball. The reptile slithered into the shadows, running in retreat even as Wencher shouted after him.

"Get back here, you coward!"

The chimeric lion alone stood against Warwick, but it was over in only a few blows between them, Warwick's claws shredding through him like paper. Hands and his snout slick with blood, the wolf stood to his full, towering height, the chem-barons swallowed up by his shadow as he glared down at them in dreadful silence. "Don't worry," Warwick said in a low growl. "I need you three alive. For now. You spoke so eloquently about a united front… consider this further incentive. You three represent the majority of industry left in Zaun, and thus, you three have the biggest impact left on the people in this pit. Things are going to be run differently from now on— you're going to help me on my hunt for every criminal and monster left in Zaun's streets, and then we'll talk about cleaning up the city. Do we understand each other?"

The chem-barons glanced at each other before they gave their answer— not that they had any choice in the matter.

It was difficult to find a chair big enough for Warwick— but not impossible. The huge brass and iron monstrosity held up his immense body, and it served its purpose. He would need a place to meet his subordinates, after all. The last of the workers had brought in a few dozen kegs of Singed's serum, enough to feed Warwick's powerlust for years to come. Finally, Singed himself handed the formula to the wolf.

"I don't suppose now I get paid?" the alchemist said pointedly. "You have command over all of Zaun's resources, so don't act as if you can't afford my bill."

"Mm." Warwick looked over to himself, grinning toothily as he idly flexed his arm and a bicep bigger than Singed rose dramatically, and the bloated of his flanks billowed out as he stretched. "I'm pleased, yes. For the first time in a long while, my hunger… is quieted. For that, I should thank you." He grabbed Singed again, this time by the waist, tossing him as if he were a ragdoll and catching him with ease. "But you started this whole mess. I have wanted nothing more than to kill you for years, you miserable old worm. Instead, I will give you something worthwhile— your life. It's not much," he chuckled, nearly squeezing the life out of Singed with the slightest twitch, the smallest application of his power. "But still."

"What— what do you mean?" Singed gasped.

"Get out of Zaun, Singed— if I ever see you here again, I'll paint these very walls with your blood. This is my city, now."