The moment the steel shutters slammed down, the world shrank to a single corridor - long, narrow, and reeking of industrial disinfectant failing to mask something far fouler.

Sven skidded to a halt, soles scraping concrete. His daggers were already out, one in each hand, tips humming faintly from stored kinetic charge.

Opposite him, blocking the only path forward, were the Vilek brothers - mutants whose reputations in Russia's underbelly had spread like a bad rash.

The shorter one stepped forward first.

He was fat in the unflattering way that ignored symmetry - a belly that strained buttons, a neck that tried to eat his chin, and a face that looked like it had been sculpted by a drunk potter with resentment. His suit, once crisp, was now a wrinkled obituary for professionalism. Wisps of greasy hair clung to his scalp like dying grass.

He spat, and the saliva hissed as it hit the floor, eating a smoking divot into the concrete.

Sven blinked, eyes widening. "…Right. Forgot about that bit."

This was Bogdan Vilek.

Acid-bodied. All fluids are corrosive. Saliva, sweat, tears - even his blood burned like molten forge runoff. He was a walking violation of workplace safety laws.

Beside him, his brother leaned on the wall, arms crossed.

This one was taller - lankier, spine crooked into a hunchback that made him look like a badly folded deck chair. His cheeks were sunken, eyes narrow and irritated, breath steaming with a faint green shimmer. He didn't sweat acid like Bogdan, but every gas in his body was poison.

This was Mikhail Vilek - The Poison Puff.

Burps shot like toxic cannon blasts.

Farts clouded like swamp artillery.

Breath green. Mood greener.

And both? Eastern European accents thick enough to spread on toast.

Bogdan jabbed a thumb at Sven. "We been look for you. You steal commission. You steal dignity. You steal wives. Now we steal you."

Mikhail snorted, and even that little exhale leaked venomous gas. "You dirty dog. You think you leave Russia and sins forget you? Nyet. We wait for moment. And now you are boxed like rat."

Sven placed a hand over his heart, mock-touched. "Dirty dog? I shower, you know. Sometimes twice a week."

"Shut mouth!" Bogdan roared.

"Make me," Sven grinned - and vanished.

BLINKSTEP.

His body dissolved into a flicker of motion, reappearing three metres to the right, coat fluttering as air snapped back into the vacuum he left behind.

'Can't phase like Isaac,' Sven thought. 'But I can dance.'

He threw a knife mid-blink, blade spiralling with a whistle. Bogdan shifted, shoulder jerking into its path, but the knife slid off course and began melting the moment it touched his skin.

Sven clicked his tongue. "Acid armour, that's cheap."

Mikhail exhaled sharply, green gas jetting forward like a dragon with indigestion. The cloud expanded, choking the width of the corridor.

Sven jerked back, holding his breath, eyes watering from reflex, not emotion.

'Bloody hell, it burns just to breathe near him,' he thought.

"Gift is stadium," Mikhail growled. "And gift is trap. And trap is you."

Sven finally exhaled once he blinked out of the gas radius - lungs gasping greedily as he sucked clean air back in.

He pointed at them dramatically. "You two are like a grotesque Mario Brothers."

Bogdan's eye twitched. "Who is Mario?"

"You," Sven said. "You're Mario. He's Luigi. Except instead of plumbing, you shoot body fluids that can burn through steel. And instead of jumping on turtles, you fart death clouds."

Mikhail bared his teeth. "We are nothing like fairy Italian plumbers."

Sven shrugged. "Right. More like radioactive ogres who lucked into supermodel wives."

That hit a nerve.

Mikhail unleashed a poison burp, chest expanding before he released it - a spherical projectile of green fumes that blasted forward like a biological grenade. It hit the wall, paint blistering, metal rail corroding in seconds.

"Projectile burps now, yeah?" Sven laughed. "Mate, that's disgusting. Creative. But disgusting."

Bogdan snarled. "Don't speak of wives!"

Mikhail echoed, "They are our wives. Not yours. You rotten leather-coat blyat!"

Sven blinkstepped again, this time appearing directly above them, boots tapping off the corridor railing before launching into a downward dive - throwing three knives mid-drop.

Mikhail released a toxic belch blast upward, intercepting the knives in a poison cloud. The blades melted mid-air like wax in furnace flame.

But Bogdan? He was sweating now.

And every droplet of sweat that flew off his brow ate holes into the stadium floor beneath him.

Sven finally had to speak between gasps, still refusing to inhale. "So wait - Bogdan. Mikhail. Honest question, yeah?"

Bogdan spat again, more saliva cratering the floor. "WHAT?!"

Sven leaned in, grinning wickedly. "Something I've always been curious about - is your, you know, baby juice acidic too?"

Mikhail gagged audibly.

Bogdan froze.

Then roared in disgust before they both attacked at once.

Bogdan launched a sweat-acid spray, arms flinging outward, droplets splattering like shrapnel. Sven blinked left, then right, then up again, narrowly avoiding a shoulder hit that would've melted through him like a hot knife through moral decency.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Sven laughed, still holding his breath.

Bogdan screamed, "I WILL DISSOLVE YOUR ORGANS AND USE YOUR BONES AS CUTLERY!"

'Seems like his English improves when he's angry,' Sven commented internally.

Mikhail's face also flushed with fury when Sven then added aloud, "And you. Poison breath. If you kiss your wife, do you kill her or what?"

Mikhail inhaled deeply, cheeks expanding, then unleashed a long, continuous stream of green breath like a furnace venting toxins.

'Crap,' Sven thought, eyes narrowing. 'This fight can't drag.'

Because if it did, Bogdan would sweat more acid.

And Mikhail would puff more poison.

They weren't just ugly.

They were escalating environmental hazards.

The corridor was filling with green fog now, venting upward toward stadium vents that were currently sealed. The space was becoming uninhabitable.

Sven blinkstepped to the far end of the corridor, boots slamming against the steel shutter.

He punched it once, twice, three times = his fists slamming against thick reinforced steel.

Nothing - he was trapped.

These definitely weren't standard-issue shutters.

"Nyx, you wanker," he hissed.

Mikhail laughed, toxic gas leaking from his mouth even as he did. "Walls do not break for you now, wife-thief!"

Bogdan added, "You cannot run! You cannot dodge forever! You cannot steal oxygen! Soon you breathe and die like mosquito in bleach!"

Sven pressed his back to the shutter, blade tips raised.

'Think. Think. Think,' he ordered himself. 'These two trust each other too much. So make them trust the attack.'

He inhaled once - a tiny, controlled breath - then flicked a knife deliberately toward the ceiling vent above Mikhail's head.

The brothers reacted instantly, coordinated like twin sides of a single corrupted coin.

Mikhail exhaled upward - POISON BURP CANNON - a toxic sphere blasting into the ceiling vent, green fumes erupting upward.

And the vent shattered.

Steel melted, bolts sizzling, toxic gas venting outward in a plume that created the opening Sven had been baiting for.

Ventilation.

Finally.

Sven sucked in a full breath and flickered back toward them, daggers flickering under the dim light. "Thanks, I can breathe a little now."

He baited another attack.

This time, a knife flicked low - toward Bogdan's left shoulder.

Bogdan swung his arm, sweat flinging outward like a corrosive whip, melting the knife, the acid droplets splashing against the wall, eating deeper craters, more ventilation forming.

Mikhail fired a poison burp forward.

Sven blinked upward again.

'One more time,' he thought.

Knife flicked.

Acid sprayed.

Poison belched.

Ventilation expanded.

Each bait was carving them open, weakening their synergy, breaking their arena advantage.

Not by overwhelming them with power.

But by overwhelming them with environmental geometry.

He continued the tactic again, baiting acid sprays to rupture vents - each attack ricocheting into stadium infrastructure, creating openings for cleaner air.

The brothers' coordination cracked like old paint under rain.

Bogdan snarled, sweat sizzling from his forehead. "You coward! You fight like man allergic to confrontation!"

Sven reappeared mid-blink, dagger plunging downward toward Bogdan's thigh, not fatal, not merciful, tactical. Bogdan twisted to intercept, acid droplets flinging off him like a corrosion nova.

The droplets and the blood from the wound splashed onto Sven's jacket - melting through the leather and scorching his skin beneath.

"My favourite jacket," he groaned, as if the pain didn't bother him.

Mikhail tried to flank him with a poison breath sweep - but Sven blinkstepped backwards, dagger raised, breathing finally stabilised.

"You two are disgusting," Sven said - not as taunt, but truth. "But respect? You hit hard. Shame your wives hit harder."

Both brothers screamed at once - lungs unleashing a poison burp and an acid sweat nova in perfect grotesque unison.

Sven blinked back as far as he could in the corridor.

There was no cover or defence he could use against them. Even the throwing knives he used were only good for distractions since they couldn't withstand the acid like his daggers could.

There was no way he could attack them without breathing in poisonous gas or getting burned by acid.

As such, Sven wasn't fighting to win.

He was fighting to delay.

And bait.

And ventilate.

The corridor was no longer a coffin.

It was a battlefield Sven could finally manoeuvre within.

Not that he'd admit it.

Because while he clashed blades in the choking green fog, while vents melted open and stadium concrete smoked under corrosive chemistry, while Russia grudges collided with London architecture…

Isaac was upstairs, hopefully staring victory in the face.

Then once he had Seraphina, he would come back, grab him, and phase them all out of here, right?

It was optimistic, but little did Sven know, Isaac was having it even worse than he was...

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