The cold.
Stanley Soak had always hated the cold. This was in part because his body, unnaturally kept alive by all manner of conditioning and genetic doping for 34 years, had to stay hot to stay alive. If his body temperature dropped below 90º F, his brain would die, Nature would take back its turf, and he would become a corpse.
The cold was an itching, burning, nauseating, stiffening sensation. The cold was the enemy. The cold blinded, stole your hearing, the feeling in your fingertips, the movement of the blood. Stanley Soak hated the cold.
Stanley Soak could feel the cold of the metal of the floor of the truck's storage cell on the side of his face. He could feel the cold of the cuff around his wrist. They had taken his special jacket, with the special lining, and the special insulation that would keep him toasty even while diving for fish off the coast of Alaska. He could feel his brain slowing down, his neurons losing their electrical conductivity.
He began to scream.
He screamed into the floor of the truck for the longest time, heedless of his "partner's" screams for Soak to stop screaming, heedless of the truck stopping, and very nearly heedless of being pitched from the back of the truck into the cold, cold street the truck had briefly screeched to a halt in. He screamed until he was hoarse, in any case. Then his partner hit him.
After Leianai and Soak had beaten the living tar out of the prison guards who were supposed to have been their 'escort' onto the battlegrounds, more had arrived to subdue the two. Seeing as how they were too volatile to navigate onto the battlefield on their own, they were trucked there.
Soak sat cross-legged and massaged his temples while his teeth chattered. He was stuck in another 'kill or be killed' tournament, only this time he was a contestant. Soak had found that much out from the guard he had "interrogated." He wondered now why Leianai hadn't simply told him in the first place.
"I n-nee-need to g-get WARM," he forced out.
Leianai rubbed his knuckles.
"The sun'll be coming up soon," he remarked.
Soak abruptly stood up.
"Yesss…the sun…"
Soak strode off, looking for open ground, and dragging Leianai along in the process.
Dawn wasn't breaking soon enough. Soak took out his industrial strength flash light and switched it on. He held the lens to his palm, and then to his forehead, and then to his shoulder, and so on.
They turned a corner and Soak nearly dropped his light. Nearly.
There were corpses. They had been stacked neatly, meticulously. But the one thing Soak noticed above all was their clothes. They were wearing them. And they looked warm. And they didn't need them any more.
Soak rushed forward, but Leianai yanked him back.
"Don't touch those! What are you thinking?!"
Soak grabbed the chain with both hands and dragged Leianai forcibly behind him.
"If the virus was going to kill us, it would have done it by now! AND. I. AM. COLD!"
While Leianai watched in horror, Soak hungrily picked through the mound and found the shirt, over-shirt, and jacket he liked the most.
Satisfied, he turned around. Leianai gazed at him with something approaching revulsion.
"You're not a cop."
Soak blinked and then remembered the lie he'd invented, but it was too late to backtrack.
Leianai's horror grew.
"Oh my god…you really are some kinda Nazi frankenstein, aren't you!? You Weren't Making It UP!!"
"Now, now, sonny,"
"Get Away From Me!"
Leianai turned and ran, pitching Stanley forward onto his face. Soak staggered to his feet and hauled with all of his might on the chain connecting them.
"That's ENOUGH OF THAT!! Do you WANT TO DIE?!"
Leianai ceased his struggle to escape. He hung his head.
He turned around with tears in his eyes.
"You bastard. You're the WORST person I could have been stuck with."
Soak began to reel Leianai in.
"See, that's where you're wrong. I'm the BEST person you could have been paired with."
He pulled Leianai in uncomfortably close.
"I'm going to keep you alive, okay? And maybe if you're lucky, you'll get a piece of the delicious cake when I hit the top."
Soak released Leianai and stepped back.
"Let's go."
They began walking, just as the sun came over the broken horizon of the wretched, dead city.
Soak stared directly into the sun for thirty seconds, before conceding defeat and putting on his aviators.
"Hey, um, Stanley…"
Soak stopped.
"Yeah, kid?"
"What I said before…"
"Yeah, I know, heat of the moment, but thing is, kiddo, when you gotta survive…"
"No, you don't know."
Soak turned around.
"Huh?"
"I'm going to kill you, the first chance I get. The minute you let your guard down, I'll end you. For all those things you did."
Soak gave him a blank look, enhanced by his mirrored sunglasses.
"Everybody's got to have a dream, I suppose."
He turned back around, trying to suppress his laughter at Leianai's enraged huffing and puffing.
Another hour passed with no human contact. They had stopped at an electronics store so Soak could find more batteries for his flashlight. He wasn't having much luck. Stores like these had been the first to be looted during whatever chaos had left this city silent.
"Look at this," said Soak condescendingly, poking a corpse with his boot.
The corpse was stretched out on the ground, as if it had died in midleap. The body had been heavily trampled. A few inches away from its hand was some kind of disc player or other entertainment-based contrivance.
Soak scoffed.
"This is what people tried to bring with them. And to where? The only thing for miles is wilderness, what the hell were they going to do with gimcracks like these?"
He stomped the player into little plastic shards.
"Hey Soak?"
Soak began rooting industriously through the corpse's pockets. Bingo! Single-As.
"Yes, my prodigy?"
He paused for the angry intake of breath.
"Yes, what is it?"
"How come they didn't take your flashlight?"
"Eh?"
Soak straightened up and turned around.
"Whaddya mean?"
Leianai shrugged.
"All they took was your shirt," he shuddered at the memory of Soak shirtless.
"But you had that flashlight and the bottle when they threw you into my cell."
Soak bit his lip. It was true, his captors had been adequately efficient when it came to confiscating those items that would have led to a severely unfair advantage in a  fight, like his kevlar ensemble. But their style (that is to say, the style of tournaments like these) was to leave the subjects with no leg to stand on. Why had they left him his accouterments?
"Couldn't say, kid."
He tapped his chin.
"Who was it that did the throwing, exactly?"
Leianai shrugged again.
"That was the thing. They looked like scientists. They weren't guards."
Soak had an extended blink and was sucked for a moment back to his time eavesdropping on a very scientific conversation…
He opened his eyes to see Leianai hefting a broken piece of masonry in his hand.
Soak moved lightning-quick and yanked the hand holding the problem-solving expedient, sending it tumbling away.
In the same breath, Soak twirled the chain and draped it on the back of Leianai's neck. Another tug, and the sixteen year old was on the ground.
Soak strutted over to his partner.
"I'll ignore that for now. But you'd better have a good lie later."
"I was looking for a weapon to use against our opponents," said Leianai, somewhat muffled.
"Good time!" said Soak appraisingly.
Some dust and dirt clods clattered to the ground in a little waterfall some way away from the two.
On instinct, Soak covered Leianai's mouth with one hand and cupped the other to his own ear.
He took his hand away slowly.
"Follow me. No sudden movements."
They skulked to the west corner of the road that opened into the cul-de-sac the electronics center had been located in and peered around the bend.
Down the street, and just turning another corner out of Soak and Leianai's sight, was another pair of contestants. Both caucasian, one blonde, the other brunette. The blonde looked only a little older than Leianai, while his counterpart could have passed for thirty. They turned the corner and were gone.
Leianai whispered into Soak's ear.
"What do we do?"
Soak ignored him.
"Soak?"
"Can you sing?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"The right one. Can you?"
There was an awkward pause.
"I can play guitar pretty well, but karaoke's never really been my thing…"
"We COULD look for a store with a guitar in it, but then we'd need a power source for the amp. We could use an acoustic, but that won't be loud enough. No, it'll have to be singing."
"But I'm no good at that! And what on earth does that have to do with–"
"Patience, my pupil. All in good time. I hope you know some good tunes kid, cause I like to enjoy myself when I'm settin' a trap…"
Leianai gulped.
"I know some Aerosmith…" he said nervously.

Chris stopped rooting through the rubble for weapons and pricked up his ears.
He turned to Gil, just lounging there. Psychopaths seemed to possess a common mindset that rendered them incapable of doing hard labor except when it came to mercilessly killing people for personal gain.
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what."
The little blonde monster wasn't even pretending to pretend to listen to him anymore.
Chris watched and waited until Gil scratched his ear, and then yanked the chain, causing the boy to slap his own face.
"Hey!"
Gil jumped up from his lounging position and ran to tackle Chris. Chris let him come and caught him in his arms in a crushing bear hug.
"I…HEARD…Somebody Singing!"
Gil stopped struggling.
"Really? Interesting."
Chris let Gil go and they dusted themselves off.
Gil sneered at Chris.
"Are you gonna try and rescue this one too?"
Chris gave him a stony look.
"Shut up."
"They all have to die if we wanna win, ya know."
"I said shut up."
Chris started walking towards the source of the noise in an attempt to avoid the conversation. Gil followed but continued trying to annoy his compatriot.
"Listen G-Man, you're going to need a serious attitude adjustment or we're both going to end up dead, mmkay?"
Chris didn't turn around.
"I haven't abandoned my mission. I'm still FBI, and I'm still going to bring this corrupt organization down."
"Task at hand, Christopher, task at hand," said Gil wearily.
_{"She saaaaaaAAAIIIiiiid WALK THIS WAY…"}
Both stopped in their tracks.
Chris turned to look at Gil.
"Hear what I'm hearing?" he said.
"Oh yes," said Gil, taking a less friendly stance on the matter.
They wandered around for another five minutes before Chris managed to triangulate the echoey singing and move towards the source.
"He's got a high voice, whoever he is," said Gil introspectively.
"I wonder how old he is."
Chris looked at Gil dubiously, who made a rude gesture accompanied by a devil-may-care grin. He batted his green eyes and gazed coquettishly into Chris's brown ones.
Another minute of walking and Chris stopped, putting his arm out to stop Gil as well. Gil slipped his hand into Chris's in an inappropriate manner. Not to say there has ever been anything wrong with hand-holding, but somebody like Gil tended to make scratching one's nose an act of sexual vandalism.
Chris snatched his hand exasperatedly out of Gil's surprisingly strong grip and pointed down the street.
"There he is."
The pale singer was wearing black pants and a black leather jacket. He had long black hair that reached a little past his shoulders.
He had been singing for at least fifteen minutes and he was starting to get a little hoarse. They couldn't see his chain from where they were standing. They wondered if he had one, or if he was even a contestant.
Gil rushed forward, almost tripping up Chris, who was forced to follow.
"Wait, stop!"
The boy had stopped singing and was just staring at Gil like a deer caught in the headlights. As Chris was brought closer by Gil's pounding footsteps, he saw how the boy had been concealing most of his chain be leaning with one hand on the corner of the building at the cross section of streets.
There was something else…
That kid's face…
Chris had been an FBI agent long enough to notice tells when interrogating a suspect. There were always little give-aways, cracks of different emotions in the changeless mask they always tried to put forth.
He was only pretending to be scared.
"GIL, STOP!"
It was too late.
The boy vanished backwards.

Soak turned his head for a split second to make sure Leianai hadn't hurt himself flying backward. It looked like he had jumped at the same time as Soak's chain-yank, assisting in his propulsion.
He turned back, and with a mighty Joe Peschi stomp, severed the frayed wires and weakened metal of the base that had held the corner's lamp post upright. Until now.
The one who had run ahead ducked out of the way. As he rolled sideways, his partner was jerked forward just a little bit, just enough to catch the tip of the light post's collapsing arc. He raised both of his arms to cover his face. The post's bulb connected with his protective cross and shattered. There was a sickening little crack and the brunette staggered backwards, clutching his wrist.
The blonde was upright by this point, and bum rushing Soak and Leianai.
Soak pulled Leianai to his feet and grabbed the arm connected to the chain connected TO THE– Other Arm. He swung both his arm and Leianai's in concert and, as blondie drew ever closer, he flung the chain out. By sheer luck, it wrapped around the blonde's neck. He had put his hands up at the last second, and the two chains were now inextricably tangled.
"Perfect!" yelled Soak.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" said the brunette. He'd just stood up. It looked like his wrist had barely even been sprained.
Soak laughed unhealthily.
"The chain is diamond-tough, right? So it follows that the only thing that can cut it is itself!"
He wrapped both of his hands in a loop of his chain and did a chainsaw YANK.
There was blood. And there was screaming.
Leianai stared fixedly at the little stump of where the blonde's little finger used to be.
"Gil!" said the brunette.
He rushed over and steadied 'Gil.'
"Chris, I swear, you owe me for this. You owe me soooo muc–"
Chris slapped Gil's face. He had been going into shock.
Soak tapped his chin. Well, they had both been crippled, but not nearly enough to stop them fighting.
He would have to–
The street rose up to meet his face. There was a weight on his back. It kept him from moving.
"Here!" Soak heard Leianai say.
"Quick, now! Kill him!!"
Soak growled. It appeared Leianai was suffering from an eerie moment of clarity and had decided to jump off the tiger's back. Well, as any student of biology can tell you, just because you are on a boat putting miles between you and the aforementioned teeth, that does not mean you should take any form of comfort. Teeth are everywhere, and even if you are on a boat, miles from anything, that just means the black needle jaws and the bulging-lamp eyes miles beneath you will get first dibs.
Soak did what is known in many urban circles as "the worm," or, "the only dance move white people are adept at," and bucked Leianai off.
Unfortunately, Chris and Gil had already taken Leianai's hint and now had a hold of both Soak's arms.
Chris spoke.
"You have the right to remain silent–"
"Shut up!" screamed Gil.
He violently twisted Soak's arm.
Soak gritted his teeth and arched his back. He bowed his legs (an inch or two off the ground from being held by Chris and Gil) and hooked either of his feet into the crooks of their knees.
He hunched forward in a vicious snake-like movement, and smashed their heads together. His head had ended up just beneath their collision. The resulting pose was not comfortable and Soak felt as if his arm and spine were on fire. He jerked free and staggered over towards Leianai, who had found a rock. Soak went into a boxing stance, but he was too slow to enter it, and Leianai clocked him on the side of his face with the chunk of masonry. As the world tried to spin out of focus, Soak noted with mild disinterest that the chunk of stone had once been part of a storefront. It had an F on it.
Soak's world was covered in a red haze and everything moved too slowly. He turned, and his turning was as the rotation of the sun across the sky. He kicked behind him, and there was a satisfying thud, magnified to a sort of 'WHOO-WHOMPH' by Soak's delirium as his booted foot connected with Leianai's groin. Chris and Gil were thudding towards him like Neil and Buzz on the moon, their hands clasped in a rigor mortis, red-rover grip, so as to minimize the vulnerability of their chain. Soak saw his own left fist, the unchained one, enter his vision and move out towards Gil's face. It moved like a planet, without any apparent momentum but with a drifting inevitability.
The fist connected with Gil's left temple, and the face bounced off and slid away a little bit, swaying from forehead to chin like a chandelier.
Chris smashed into Soak's midsection and bore him to the ground. He raised both of his fists over his head and brought them down on Soak's nose, breaking it. He raised his hammerfist for a second blow, and Soak kneed him in the groin. Then he did it again.
He rolled out from under Chris and ran towards Leianai.
Soak wasn't thinking clearly. He painfully (for both of them) gripped Leianai's free wrist with one hand and a guestimation of the chain's midpoint with the other.
"YOU ARE FLAIL!" he bellowed incoherently, then he leaned back on his heels, straightened his legs, arched his back…uh, back, and swung.
Time caught its second wind and Leianai connected with first Chris and then Gil with a staccato pair of cracks.
Soak completed his arc and let Leianai go. The boy rolled a pace or two and came to a halt face down. Soak's hands were scorched and raw from handling the indestructible chain so many times. His arms felt as if they had spent a little holiday time outside their sockets.  He ran over to Leianai and flipped him over.
"What was your excuse that time?"  he slurred, a little cogitation returning to his brain.
Leianai opened his eyes. One of them was slightly out of focus. A little rivulet of blood from his hairline contributed to the conclusion that he had suffered a mild concussion. He gazed at Soak unseeingly.
"Trekka?"
"What?" said Soak.
Something impacted his shoulder and exploded. The pain was intense. He turned as Gil hefted another chunk of concrete in his hands. Chris was just staggering to his feet.
Soak tried to climb to his feet but Gil had already launched his missile. Soak squeezed his eyes shut, but opened them a second later when no death came.
Leianai had caught the mouldering concrete in one hand. With the aid of the other hand, he crushed it. Then, he was on his feet, and rushing to meet the two as they made another assault on Soak. Leianai still had a wild look in his eyes, as if he were in a place altogether different than the rest of them.
"YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE! YOU JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE!! JUST YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!"
Chris and Gil tried a pincer attack on Leianai, but he stomped on the middle of their chain, bringing both of their heads within punching distance. He jabbed Chris in the eyes and then wrenched his arm backwards, elbowing Gil in the throat. A broken piece of glass opened up new opportunities for the blood in Gil's forehead, allowed it to get around and see new places, like his chin.
A hand slammed into Leianai's shoulder and spun him around. He bared his teeth and snarled, but Soak slapped him.
"Say your goodbyes, kid, we're leaving."
"OH NO YOU DON'T!" screamed a bloody-faced Gil.
"This isn't over! Not by a long shot!"
Soak took one second to think, and was nearly killed as Chris came up from behind and tried to brain him with a rock.
In that moment, Soak got a wonderful idea. Like many of is ideas, it was stolen, but then, it was their fault for not improving upon it when they had the chance. How tiresome to have to do their jobs for them.
He grabbed Leianai's hand in a grip of steel and spun so that they were back to back. The chain's presence in battle had been minimized, and there was less chance of a surprise attack.
Chris and Gil circled them, looking for an opening. Occasionally, one of them would lunge, but Soak and Leianai were always ready for them.
Soak's plan was back on track. He and Leianai controlled the battle now, and they were using their executive privilege to end it. They were sidling towards a side street that Soak had marked out from all the others by scratching on the street sign.
As they came within striking distance with the sign, Soak and Leianai made a break for it. Very, very fortunately, Chris and Gil's semi-circle had rotated such that Soak and Leianai had an opening into the street. Halfway down the street, Leianai began to collapse. Soak quickly put the boy's arm over his shoulder and continued running. Chris and Gil had wasted no time breaking formation and were steadily gaining.
Soak made for a dilapidated apartment complex and ran on through the gaping front doorway, up the stairs, down the main hallway, and screeched to a halt by the first story window looking into the alley behind the building.
He stood there, sweating bullets as he listened to the dynamic duo's pounding footsteps get closer and closer. Just as he saw the top of Gil's flaxen head crest the horizon of the stairwell, Soak turned to his left and kicked the exposed support beam for the floor into splinters.
He dived with Leianai out of the window as the building imploded. They impacted the high wall and slid down to rest painfully on the ground of the alley.
They looked at the pile of rubble for the longest time. Then, something stirred.
Chris levered a section of floor out of his way and stood there, panting. The chain was still attached to Chris's arm, and to Gil's arm, but not to Gil.
He spit blood and wiped his eyes. He began to move unsteadily towards the two of them, a determined look in his eye.
Before Stanley could stop him, Leianai had snatched Soak's precious flashlight from the old man's belt and had rushed to meet Chris in the middle of the alley. Chris swung his chain like a whip, but in the confined space of the alleyway, Leianai had the advantage of a superior weapon. He reared back in the very same movement of dodging one of Chris's swings and smashed him across the chin. Chris staggered back and had to brace himself against part of a wall. Leianai moved in for the kill.
In an instant, Chris was up and tightening his chain around Leianai's throat.
"No!" shouted Soak. He was conscious only of the pounding of his own footsteps, Leianai's rapidly waning gasps for air, and then…
…A muffled, but still very familiar click.
Soak backpedaled, comically scraping the ground as he fought against his own momentum and covered his face with his arms.

Leianai was looking up. It was day time, and nuclear smog had obliterated much of the blue sky, but he swore he could see stars. They flashed on and off like insects. Then, there was a pop, and something warm running down his face.

Soak unwrapped the chain and pulled Leianai away. There was nothing left but a rib cage. Soak looked up at the rooftops for the sniper, but they were alone. Soak wondered if his counterpart in this universe would have had the sense to recognize the sound of a modified anti-tank rifle . Probably not. Probably wouldn't have made it this far. He supposed he was just lucky it hadn't been aimed at him.

Night fell, and Leianai had recovered his sanity. He gazed sullenly at Soak as he picked up the tongs and removed the plaster mold from the fire barrel. Soak placed the mold on the ground and cracked it with his hand. He crouched there for some time, just holding his hand over the new metal as it cooled from white to red to black. At last, he picked it up. The blade was six inches long, but had no edge. The handle incorporated a knuckle duster as a hand-guard.
"It was a good flashlight," said Leianai, perhaps trying to smooth things over for being the one to break it.
"But it's a better trench spike," said Soak.
Clausewitz hadn't had much to say about trenches, other than to endeavor to not find yourself inside of one, but reading through, Soak had realized a fundamental truth about himself and his situation.
Use what you got.
And if he couldn't use his flashlight to light dark places, he could still use it to impale any unaware skulls he managed to surprise in the dark.