The wolf pup only wagged its fuzzy tail and yipped. Brandon petted its head, and its tail swished even faster. It was like a tiny broom sweeping off the dust on his shoulder.

Oh, Mika would definitely love this little wolf. Unfortunately, she had to wait until she could finally leave the hospital to see her new pet.

Brandon gave Albert and other Millennion agents a "see what I say" smile. Everybody except Albert gasped and began talking to each other.

"It seems like you've gotten yourself a pet, Sir!" Albert approached him and picked up the pup. "Now, how about naming it? Every pet needs a good name." With the little wolf lying on his palms like a newborn baby, he took a closer look at it. "It's a girl."

A girl. Brandon had actually prepared a name for each gender, all to honor the deceased loved ones. No, in truth, he had had enough with the guilt and grief that clawed at his heart; at least with Nancy the Pup by his side, the talons would loosen a bit.

"Nancy," he muttered, needles puncturing his heart for every syllable he spelled out.

"Nice name." Fortunately, the usually chatty and curious Albert stopped right there.

Flashing Albert a grateful smile, he reached out a hand at the pup. The wolf rolled, dropped to the ground and wriggled her tail upon landing on her feet. Excited barks escaped from her mouth.

After nodding at her, Brandon picked up his axe and looked at the other agents. All of them - except their leader Oswald - inspected the shelves of test tube racks and pried open every single crates in the lodge. The massive bayonets attached to the anti-necrolyze rifles replaced crowbars pretty well.

"Stop looking at me, Brandon!" Oswald barked. "Help my men carry those crates outta here!"

Albert stared at Oswald. "My friend, it is very rude of you to address Mr. Brandon without the 'Mr.' He takes care of Miss Mika, our future boss, and that gives him a high position in the organization."

"He was once a traitor, and he made a big jump just because of Miss Mika."

That old story of betrayal again? Brandon stormed towards Oswald with his teeth bared. Suddenly, a thick tendril of flesh whizzed past his neck and grazed Oswald's cheek. Brandon stopped in his tracks and turned to watch the tendril retreat into...Nancy's mouth.

The serum had granted her a stretchy tongue.

"What the hell is this?" Oswald asked. "Damn pup!"

"She didn't like your attitude." Albert snickered. "Anyway, Brandon's hand is better reserved for his axe, so your men gotta carry those crates."

Brandon glanced over his shoulder to see a scowling Oswald. The human's face pretty much told him, "I hope you get to fight a big bad monster who will beat you up." Brandon remained poker-faced, though.

Once the agents had done the investigation, they left the shack. Brandon led the way again, but now, he had Nancy by his side. Too bad the whole treant and giant ants incident had scared off and even killed most - if not all - of the inhabitants in the forest. It robbed Nancy the chance of testing out her power on some tasty snacks.

They reached the spot where the treant and the giant ants first appeared. The clear greenish fluid - the insects' blood - on the twig-filled ground had dried up, but the humans winced as they paced. Nancy, however, didn't care.

Hmm? As far as he knew, superiors retained their sense of smell...

They did. Nancy ran off to the ground with crimson patches and sniffed it. Brandon winced at this, hoping that she wouldn't want human flesh as her meal.

"Hey, pal," Albert told her. "Keep walking. I'll give you some of my sandwiches later."

Nancy stopped sniffing and resumed her walk. Smart dog; she deliberately slowed down for Brandon to catch up with her.

They got out of the forest a few minutes later. There, the five men who had been assigned to collect samples for the lab and their comrades' bodies stood beside an armored truck.

Brandon's heavy footsteps drew their attention, and once they saw Nancy, they yelped. Nancy stretched her tongue to snatch an anti-necrolyze rifle out of a man's hands.

As the men pointed their anti-necrolyze rifles at the pup, Brandon stepped in front of Nancy and snarled at them. The bullets wouldn't hurt her, but he wouldn't want to see them shoot a pup.

One of the man said, "B-but that's-"

"I'll deal with her if she goes rogue." Brandon looked at the pup with a stern face. "These people are our friends. Treat them well."

Nancy nodded. With her jaws clamped on the rifle's grip, she dragged it towards the weaponless agent. Brandon followed her while staring at the other men, making them tremble a bit.

The weaponless agent picked up the rifle. "Um, thanks." The man looked at Brandon instead of Nancy, so Brandon growled and pointed at the pup. "Oh, yeah, good dog," the man said, shifting his gaze to the yipping pup.

"Can you stop the K-9 unit stuff, Bran- I mean, Mr. Brandon?"

Behind him, a frowning Oswald stood with his arms crossed. Brandon replied with nothing.

"We have so many agents and raided a lot of stuff, but thanks to you, there are only two trucks now. How are we supposed to go back?"

"Some of you can ride in our van," Albert chimed in. "I can drop you at the Anti-Necrolyze HQ."

"Good idea." Oswald approached the van, still wearing that same scowl. "Oh, yes, I'll be riding in the van. As for the others, I give you two minutes to discuss who's coming with us."

Albert gave Oswald a friendly smack to the back. "Hey, bro. You're coming with us because of Mr. Brandon, aren't you?"

"Yes. Just so that I can watch him get bitten by that damn pup."

"It's okay to just say, 'I feel safer with him around.'" Albert glanced over his shoulder and winked at Brandon. "Mr. Norton often rides in our van and says the same thing."

Brandon couldn't help but grin as he and Nancy headed to the van as well.

"Oh, yeah," Albert suddenly said, "I'd better call Boss now. He'll probably want us to visit the lab after this. I mean, you need to be in a perfect condition for whatever Mr. Wong has prepared for you."

As expected, Biscoe told them to visit the research facility after dropping Oswald and his men at the Anti-Necrolyze HQ. What Albert had guessed was right, but he had missed one thing: Biscoe also wanted to brief Brandon on the upcoming tournament.

The journey back to the urban area of Billion took about two hours. Nancy ended up sleeping on Brandon's lap once she had swallowed four triple decker sandwiches and licked Albert's lunchbox clean - not that Albert cared anyway. It made Brandon wonder how much food this pup needed for a day.

"Yeah, the organization paid a lot for your medical treatment," Oswald said. "And now they gotta feed a gluttonous pup for your sake. Once she's grown big, I bet she needs to eat three cows a day."

Nancy - much to Brandon's delight - woke up as soon as Oswald said those. The pup licked his face, and everybody in the van burst out laughing. Oswald cursed with a reddening face as he shakily searched for a tissue paper.

The laughter didn't last long because they soon arrived at the gate of Anti-Necrolyze HQ.

As Albert drove the van towards the gateway and the security post, Oswald yelled, "Stop here! I can go there by myself!"

"Very well." Albert unlocked the doors for Oswald and his men. "See you next time."

"I hope not!" Oswald snapped, giving Brandon and Nancy one last stare before leaving the van and slamming the door shut. Brandon only shrugged.

Once all of the anti-necrolyze agents had left the van, Albert and Brandon set off to the lab. It took only about ten minutes to reach the research facility. On the parking lot, Brandon could see a few old cars - not the type of vehicles Millennion scientists would ride.

Leaving the van and sauntering towards the massive three-story building, Brandon and Nancy looked at the men in safety helmets. They stood before the gaping hole beside the missing entrance door, applying cement on bricks and stacking them to seal the cleft shut.

"It's been a while, eh?" Albert spoke from behind him. "You know, the giant dog incident."

Brandon nodded, images of the red-eyed beast flashing across his eye. Yeah, good thing he had slain the creature and avenged the scientists it had devoured. Also, Zach had died.

Brandon found more construction workers along the ruined hallway; funnily enough and fortunately, nobody questioned about Nancy. Not that the lab had put up "No Pets Allowed" signs somewhere, but nobody had ever seen Brandon with a pet. Moreover, most Millennion people were familiar with his frugal nature; as a man who relied on Millennion's money to just stay alive, he would never want to further burden the organization.

But people could always change, couldn't they?

After a few minutes, he finally found a hanging signboard with "Weapon Engineering Area" carved on it. Just like the hallway, the area had many construction workers around and about. With destroyed ceilings and walls, the building could no longer contain all the refreshing breeze from the air conditioners. Not that it was scorching hot right now, but Brandon always loved lower room temperature.

"Since Dr. Douglas' old office is under repair, he has moved to the new office by the staircase," Albert told him.

It took them about a minute to reach the new office. Unlike the old one, it didn't have a plaque with Douglas' name on the door.

A gust of cool wind poured out of the room when Brandon opened the door. A fiberglass desk rested at the corner of the office, accompanied by three fiberglass chairs. Douglas and Biscoe occupied two of them.

Biscoe stood up and looked down at Nancy, his face an impassive mask. No, he was actually more like a curious scientist studying a specimen. "So, that's the pup Albert has been talking about."

Nancy responded with several happy barks, while Brandon nodded with a gulp. What did Biscoe feel right now? Would he pay for this pup's food?

"Looks like a good companion." Biscoe smiled at Brandon. "Well, I just hope that you'll work harder to keep it fed. Dr. Douglas told me that superiors have voracious appetite."

Brandon gave Biscoe a thumbs-up. "Yes, Sir. Thank you."

"Uh..." Biscoe scratched his cheek with a finger. "I don't know, but I feel like...you're afraid that I won't let you keep this pup?"

Brandon's gaze fell to Nancy, who returned it with a few wags of its tail.

"It's okay. Albert already told me a lot about this pup." Biscoe placed a hand on his shoulder. "Besides, a superior wolf will greatly help you in your job." He turned around and led Brandon to an empty chair. "Take a seat."

Once they sat down, Brandon looked at Albert and Nancy. Too bad the office didn't have extra chairs for them.

"Never mind." Albert grinned. "We'll just stand here." A few barks followed.

"Okay, first thing first..." Biscoe pointed at Brandon's bandaged hand. "You'll need some refined serum. The match tonight seems tough."

"Tough?"

"Mr. Wong decided to turn the whole tournament into just one deathmatch, but here's the thing. You and your foe will fight barehanded. After one minute, the committee will toss in Bonehacker and Cerberus."

"That doesn't sound tough, Boss," Albert commented. "Brandon is sure to win if he can get a weapon."

"I'm not done talking, Albert. Mr. Wong wants this deathmatch to be an epic, bloody one because humans just love watching the undead bleed and struggle to kill each other. So, he asked me to send a necrolyzer with regenerative capabilities."

Just a necrolyzer, eh? Brandon smiled a bit. He had taken down scarier things - superiors in particular, so this shouldn't be hard. Even if the foe proved to be threatening, perhaps his hybrid power would surface. Time to learn how to control his bloodlust!

"Be careful, Mr. Brandon," Douglas said. "Your foe came from a corpse of someone who hates you very much. He'll take pleasure in fighting- no, torturing you."

"However, it's not like you won't enjoy killing this guy once more. You hate him as much as he hates you." Face hardened with determination, Biscoe clenched a fist and held it in front of Brandon's face. "Be sure to win, Brandon. Most people are betting against you because you have your fair share of notoriety out there, so if you win, Mr. Wong will get a lot of money and forgive us."