Semper Fi VS Mr. Vengeance

The rain had been falling for six minutes when the two of them found each other in the wreckage of the warehouse district.

Semper Fi stood ankle-deep in ash, the stub of his cigar glowing orange against the gray downpour. He'd been strolling through the industrial ruins for no particular reason—he never had a particular reason—when the hiss of a pressure valve and the reek of kerosene told him he wasn't alone. He took a long drag. "Well now," he said, his voice like gravel poured through a radio, "ain't this a hell of a place to run into somebody's bad Sunday."

Mr. Vengeance stepped out of the shadows between two collapsed conveyor belts. The gas-mask helmet caught the rain on its twin lenses, and the tattered cape dripped behind him like a drowned flag. The flamethrower on his right arm clicked with a pilot-light's soft chuff. "The Lord delivers the wicked into the path of the just," he intoned, each word measured like a tolling bell.

Semper Fi grinned around his cigar, that predatory, delighted grin. "Cute. You got a sermon for every occasion, or was that one on special?"

Mr. Vengeance raised the long baton in his left hand, pointing it at the yellow figure like a preacher leveling a finger at a sinner. "You have the stench of the abyss about you, soldier. The uniform of the righteous worn by a thing with no soul."

"Righteous." Semper Fi chuckled, low and warm. "Buddy, I've been called a lot of things. Nobody's ever called me that and meant it as a compliment." He flicked the cigar into the mud and rolled his shoulders, the USMC patches on his sleeves flexing. "You want a fight? Fine. But let's skip the hymn and get to the part where somebody's lying in the wet."

Mr. Vengeance moved first, with that ritualistic precision of his—a deliberate, almost liturgical advance. The flamethrower hissed, and a crescent of fire rolled across the ground, cutting Semper Fi off from the alley behind him. Area denial. The marine heard the plan in the gesture: push, pin, burn.

But Semper Fi had walked into a thousand such cages. He didn't retreat. He walked *forward*, straight through the wall of heat, his combat boots steaming as they crossed the scorched floor. The stench of singed fabric rose from his coat, and he laughed through it. "Gotta do better than a campfire, Padre."

Mr. Vengeance's baton came around in a controlled arc, aimed at the marine's jaw. Semper Fi caught it on his forearm with a meaty thud, the impact jarring both of them. For a moment they were locked, the vigilante's dual lenses inches from Semper Fi's grinning face.

"You hit like a Sunday school teacher," Semper Fi said, and shoved.

Mr. Vengeance staggered back, but he turned the retreat into a pivot, and the flamethrower erupted in a long, sustained jet. Semper Fi dove sideways, rolling behind a fallen shipping container as the fire licked the air where he'd stood. The metal behind him rang with heat, warping under the assault.

"Now that's more like it," Semper Fi called from cover, catching his breath, the playful edge still in his voice. "You're a regular barbecue evangelist."

But the vigilante wasn't playing. He advanced, methodical, herding the marine with controlled bursts of flame—left, right, center—each one shaving off another inch of Semper Fi's hiding place. The container grew hot against his back. The heat was the thing. It was always the heat that decided these ones.

Semper Fi's mind, cold and tactical beneath the swagger, read the situation. The flamethrower was the threat, and the fuel hose was the artery. He'd been circling toward it, but Mr. Vengeance kept the pressure on, denying the angle. The seemingly favorable position—cover, a clear flank—kept revealing its cost: every route forward ended in fire, and the fire was getting closer.

Time to change the method.

"Alright, preacher," Semper Fi shouted, and he burst from behind the container in a flat-out sprint—not away, not toward the flamethrower, but *at* Mr. Vengeance himself, closing the distance in three enormous strides. The vigilante raised the baton, but Semper Fi was already inside his guard. The marine's fist sank into the armored gut, doubling Mr. Vengeance with a wet gasp.

The flamethrower dipped.

Semper Fi's other hand shot out, closing around the fuel hose. With a grunt of pure, joyful effort, he *yanked*—and the hose tore free of the coupling, spraying kerosene across the mud between them. The pilot light flickered, hungry, and then—

Mr. Vengeance's own weapon became his undoing. The spray ignited, and a sheet of fire rushed along the fuel line back toward the tank on his arm. The vigilante moved to kill the valve, but Semper Fi was already there, catching the gas-masked head in both calloused hands.

"Let that be a lesson, Padre," Semper Fi growled, his voice velvet over steel. "You bring a fire to a war, you best be ready to get burned by your own match."

He drove his knee up. The gas mask cracked against the blow, and Mr. Vengeance's grip on the baton went slack. The marine ripped the helmet away, revealing the face beneath—a man with haunted eyes and a scarred jaw, staring up at his conqueror with something between defiance and exhaustion.

Semper Fi held the broken gaze for a long moment, and for just a second, the mockery drained from his grin. "You done some bad things in His name, haven't you, son? Carried it heavy." He released the vigilante, who slumped to his knees in the rain.

Mr. Vengeance's lips moved, a fragment of scripture lost in the downpour. "The Lord… is my light…"

"Yeah." Semper Fi pulled a fresh cigar from his vest, clamped it between his teeth, and lit it off the dying flame of the ruptured hose. He took a long, satisfied drag. "That's what they all say." He turned and walked into the rain, the ash hissing around his boots, leaving the avenger kneeling in the smell of his own spent fire.

Behind him, Mr. Vengeance bowed his head, his vengeance unmade, his judgment turned back upon himself in the only way that mattered.