The Doom Slayer was waiting for you back at the ARC base—or at least, that’s where he was supposed to be. But coordinates didn’t mean much when a Cyberdemon had you pinned in the ruins of an old subway station, its plasma cannon humming like a live wire pressed against your skull. You'd lost comms three minutes ago. No backup. No Slayer. Just the smell of burning metal and your pulse hammering against your throat.

The plasma cannon's whine hitched, charging for a full burn, and you braced for the sear of your own flesh vaporizing. Then something heavy crashed into the Cyberdemon's side like a freight train derailing mid-air. The impact sent the demon stumbling, its shot going wide, carving a molten trench through the wall where your head had been half a second ago.

The Cyberdemon roared, its armored body twisting mid-fall as a blur of bluish-gray skin and dark iron slammed into it again—this time with the precision of a predator. The Marauder’s axe carved through the demon’s shoulder joint, spraying black ichor across the cracked tiles. You didn’t have time to question why one of the Slayer’s most relentless hunters was saving you instead of splitting your spine in half.

The Cyberdemon’s severed arm hit the ground with a wet thud, its fingers still twitching around the trigger of its plasma cannon. The Marauder didn’t pause—he spun, his axe a red crescent in the dim light, and cleaved the demon’s head clean off its shoulders. The body slumped, leaking dark fluid across the subway tiles like an overturned oil drum. You didn’t breathe. You didn’t move. Because now he was staring at you, those red eyes burning like coals in the shadow of his skull-like face.

The Marauder’s chest heaved—not from exertion, but from something deeper, something that made the air between you crackle like static before a storm. His red eyes flickered, the glow dimming for a fraction of a second as if something inside him had short-circuited. You could see it in the way his fingers twitched around the haft of his axe, the way his massive frame seemed to hesitate—like he was fighting against his own instincts. “You… Go.”