A man in a grey long-sleeved shirt, black jeans and combat boots walks into the emergency room of the hospital, his hand pushes the glass door open.
The ambience comprising the smell of spirit and tablets fills his nose as he thinks back to what Ricardo told him.
He walks to the nurse who's noting something while speaking to a patient, he's in his hands in his pockets, so he pulls one out to tap her on the shoulder, and she nearly shrieks.
"Oh, Mr...Morgan's was it? I didn't hear you enter."
"Y..yeah, I just need to see Dr Jones."
"Is it about your brother?"
"No, it's...something we spoke about when I last saw him...personal stuff."
"Well, I'll let him know you're here."
Just as she said that he perceived the faintest whiff of burning wood, he looks around,, but nothing out of the ordinary seems at play."
His suspicions were correct as the appendage of a worm tucked in a vent relays the visual feedback to Dr Jones, a blonde, blue-eyed man in a black shirt and white trousers.
He grins as he walks downstairs towards the emergency room.
As he gets there, he sees the nurse.
"Mr. Morgan's here to.."
"Don't finish that, I know."
He walks passed her.
"How does he always know? Is something burning? "
She asks herself.
As he gets to the room, he only meets the three patients on their beds, sleeping. He manifests the worm and sees him walking into the bathroom.
As he stands in front of the mirror, the glass reminds him of the shot glass Ricardo held as he spoke to him.
"That ring...I need to ask..."
"I expected you would, he says now leaning forward and holding the ring.
"I'm glad you asked, know of Gengis Khan,, right..?
"It was rumoured that his nephew, Kublai Khan, had two guards at the golden Siege of Kaffa, when he catapaulted duseased bodies over a palace wall. One day, his strongest guard fell to the black plague, but there was something special about him; he was a "bond" user and General Khan...he didn't want to let go of the asset, so he had him cremated and his bones mixed with gold. And made them into jewellery and armour, he believed protected him till his death. This is what was left after bandits robbed Kublai Khan's burial site."
"Did it work?"
"Well, he's dead now and didn't leave any journals, the story was only passed down by word of mouth....that or I'm mixing it up with an anime I recently watched."
Lio raises an eyebrow to this.
Ricardo grins in response, but his expression changes to a deadpan as he continues.
"Now, about the job...I can simply say you will be well compensated and your brother will be well taken care of.
Lio sighs as he reclines into his seat.
"I'm not going to be a thug."
"That's not what I'm asking, just protect me on and during a trip, that's all."
"Where?"
"The Island where man goes to meet monsters...The place where the deadliest fights on the planet happen...
"Does it have a name?"
"It's in a foreign language and it's difficult to translate, but it's referred to by most as 'Blackout Island."
"I have so many questions," Lio says, scratching his head.
"...I am happy to answer all..."
The loud vibration of his phone against the table cuts him off.
"This guy... You remember Dr Jones?"
"The doctor with that worm-like bond?"
"Yeah, I've been having issues with him. "
"I don't mean to tell you how to 'boss', but just fire him if he's that much trouble."
"I've been trying to do that since before you entered the room." He groans, rubbing the space between his eyes with his finger and thumb.
"Lio...I want you to help me make this clear to him."
"That wasn't part of our arrangement. "
"I know, but this isn't just for me."
"Explain."
"The man has access to patients and has the means to make them suffer even more for his amusement, I would know because...I've seen him do it in front of me."
"...and you hired that creep."
"Look, I messed up, I want to make it right."
"...through me."
He closes his mouth and nods his head in response.
"No violence, just a chat."
"Sure"
The doctor walks into the bathroom and meets Lio, washing his hands at the sink, looking into the wall-mounted mirror.
Bang drives a silver convertible down a street and bobs his head to "Eye of the Tiger" playing on his speaker at the loudest volume as he mouths the lyrics.
He admires the neon-filled city bolstered by the nighttime. The brightly coloured lights from shops to even the traffic lights make him grin, another light seems to overshadow the other, the red and blue ones.
He puts on sunglasses and ignores them as he lip-syncs the chorus of the song until two police cars drive in front of him, blocking his path.
He stands at the entrance and speaks to Lio as he faces the mirror, watching him, he notices two giant human-sized worms lying at the door, presumably to prevent anyone from entering.
"I asume you're from Mr Hernandez." He says.
The room is cold and silent, the air is cool but seo tense it's almost palpable.
"Your boss wants to terminate his contract with you.".
The silence fills the room once again.
"Sadly, Mr Morgan's, there was no contract when I started working with..."our" employer...I'm sorry he wasted your time."
"Listen..."
He walks to the automated hand dryer beside the entrance and calmly dries his hands; he stands only a few feet from the doctor.
"Choose your next words carefully."
The doctor says as two large black earthworms emerge from the toilet stalls.
"Just walk away now, doc, no one needs to get hurt."
Tge doctor smiles moves his finger in his pocket causing one of the worms to swiftly wrap around Lio's neck who he lands a knuckle saandwich in the man in the white coat causing him to stagger back as the other worm wraps around Lio's body; immobilizing his arms and legs and he falls to the ceramic tiled floor, hitting his head.
The first worm continues to tighten around his neck as he struggles to move his arms to pull it off.
His vision starts to get blurry, and he wiggles around to no avail.
"Just blackout already." He doesn't know who said that, but it was a familiar voice. He heard it before. He sees himself in a room, he looks around and sees the body of a serpent slithering around him, leaving almost no room for light or air.
He pushes against the body and sees himself on a street, one he will never forget. He walks to Derek Kane Avenue, where he sees a large, muscular man and a fat man dragging a young Lio to an abandoned building.
"You like to steal, kid? Take it then."
The obese Asian man says, throwing a solid gold wristwatch at the bow, who's on his knees now tied at the wrist and legs, it strikes his forehead,, causing it to swing backwards.
"Mess him up, and if you go too far...just get rid of the body."
The large man starts to punch him over and over.
"You don't know how to scream, kid?"
"What's the point? No one's coming."
"You're a piece of shit but I respect that..."
He's cut off by another thug who's carrying a much younger boy.
"Hey boss, I found this one trying to sneak in. What do we do with him?"
"They're both black...give him the same treatment once this is done.
Lio's heart started racing.
"Let him go!!!"
"So he can scream."
A odor of burning wood envelops him and his pupils become slit shaped.
The cuts on his face and skin are covered by silver scales so sharp that, when he rubs the blades against them, they easily cut through.
The man who was beating him stands towering over him.
"So what do you think you're gonna do?"
Lio vanishes from his sight and bites his hand so deeply that his bones crack immediately. Before he can hold the hand to stop the bleeding, Lio jumps to his face and uses the silver scales on his knuckles to slash his eyes.
The man wails and falls to the floor as the other man pulls out a firearm.
Lio walks towards him regardless as he walks back and covers his face, unloading six bullets till the gun starts clicking.
When he raised his eyes, he saw that the other guard was in the way, and all the bullets were now in his chest.
He runs to the car, gets in and scrambles for the keys, but when he looks outside the car, the young Lio dangles the keys in front of him.
When the police arrived, Lio's eyes returned to normal, and all three men were covered in blood. The man in the car was impaled by a lamp post, and the fat man was dismembered with his limbs neatly tucked in the boot of the car.
"S...so that's what happened. "
"That's right, Lio," a large silver serpent appears behind the adult Lio.
"Why ?"
"Let's just say I thrive on chaos."
"Who are you? Where are you from?"
Your grandfather made me, I was his bond, but he promised me something and never fulfilled his end of the bargain, so I'm just a bitter debt collector now."
"What did he promise you?"
"One second..."
The serpent vanishes, leaving him alone in a dark void.
Lio loses consciousness in the bathroom as the doctor walks to the body and injects something into him.
"You won't be waking up from this."
Lio's body stops moving altogether. One of the worms crawls to lio, and one of its ends splits open to reveal a mouth with soncentric serrated teeth and motions to the body.
However, his body jerks around like a ragdoll until it smashes against the mirror
Leaving him with cuts and blood dripping on the mirror and the floor.
The doctor is taken aback by this.
Lio's body rises up with his neck damaged and silver scales covering his wounds. He vanishes from the doctor's line of sight but appears beside him.
He shriesks and runs to the door as the worms try to immobilise him again, but when the sharp scales rub against their bodies, it's enough to cut through them, making them back off in fear.
"Cowards." The doctor mutters as he rushes out of the bathroom, and at the same time, an elderly man in a patient's gown enters the bathroom.
"Hello Doctor, I just ca..."
Before he could finish his statement, the doctor threw him out of the way as he ran out.
As he's about to escape the hospital, an object smashes against the lights, and something drags him by his legs.
"No..let me go, please!!!
He drags him to a toilet stall, raises his head, and throws him at the toilet seat.
He groans a he tries to massage the sharp pain in his back, and Lio stops moving on the spot.
"I was there at your darkest moments...even at the mission at Fort Blanc."
"Sh...show me what happened.
Slowly the dark void changes, he sees and feels the cold of the forest he'll never forget, the chill of night and chirping of crickets he goes into the bomb shelter where a group of nen in vests and csmo trousers have lio's men surrounded, a single torch is the corner of the room.
Lio, that day, was at the entrance with a grenade in hand. The hostages were outside.
He could simply blow up the entrance and escape, but he went back in, and that's when the mamba took over. Lio easily killed the men, but his comrades saw his unworldly movements and turned their guns on him.
He smashes the torch, and they open fire on him, unknowingly firing at and killing themselves.
The memory fades, and Lio is in tears.
The serpent slithers and coils around Lio.
"Leave."
"Come again?"
"I don't care if you're a demon or an angel... my body, my rules, now let me back in control!"
Lio remembers teaching people at a karate school. After class, one of his adult female students walks up to him. She was darkskinned, and her hair was rolled into a ponytail
"Hi, sensei...I noticed the bruises on your knuckles; I just hope you have that checked out."
"Yeah, don't worry...occupational hazard."
"Okay, but just take care of yourself, there's more to life than work."
Lio finds himself blushing and tries to cover his face as she starts walking home.
"Hey, I know we just met, but can I give you a ride home?"
"I'd like that", she says. I'm Layla."
"I'm Lio."
"I know, you're the sensei,remember?"
"Oh yeah, I am." He says sheepishly, looking at the name on his GI as they both laugh.
The snake laughs a sickly laugh.
"Oh, wait you were serious....hmm...ok, a y, let's see how this goes... butt only because I like this fire inside you."
Lio's consciousness returns, and he looks around at the blood glass and broken light bulbs.
He goes to the elderly man who's cowering in a corner.
"Please don't hurt me."
Lio extends his hand to him.
"Sir, I promise I won't"
He helps him up, and the man leaves the bathroom.
He goes back to the stall and picks the doctor by the throat and starts punching his face over and over, but stops abruptly.
A strong-smelling liquid oozes out from Lio's fingers.
"That's what you injected me with."
"Now, I want to. Kill you so much right now, but I am not you, so I will let you live and..."
"I'll never set foot in a hospital again. Okay." The man says, trembling.
"No! I want you to recover and take care of these sick people. Am I clear?"
"Y..yes sir."
"Good." Lio calls 911, and as he steps out of the bathroom, he falls, but an arm catches him."
Bang thinks to himself:
"He was able to control his bond even though he lacked the training. This year's Blackout tournament is going to be the best one yet."
Elsewhere
Layla is watching Scream 5 on her phone with a cat perched on her lap, her phone rings, and she answers it.
"Hello, this is Ricardo Hernandez, Am I onto Layla Speranza?"
Lio wakes up in the dark void again with the serpent staring at him.
"You enjoyed it, didn't you?"
The serpent asked.
"What do you want, like really want? What can I do to get you to leave me alone ?"
"What I want will be revealed in due time...but as regards your brother, you can do one simple thing. Kill the man in the plain wooden mask."
"Why?"
The snake hisses, and he wakes up again, this time in his room covered in stitches.
He goes back to Limbo and meets Ricardo.
That night, Lio drives with Bang in the passenger seat and a wmt towards a dock where a boat is waiting.
Bang wears his mask as Lio looks at him with his peripheral vision.
Bang sees the invisible.embers covering fifteen other people on the boat, a man in a tnic wearing a sunhat, a couple having dinner together,, among others.
Unbeknownst to them, two black vans are speeding towards them.