CHAPTER
SIX: THE WOLF
The doors
to Graveburn Arms slid open with a smooth whisper. Dim lights pulsed along the floor like a
guided path. Charged weapons lined the
walls in silent formation. Kael
stepped in, coat still dusted with plaster from the wreckage of his apartment.
He didn't shake it off. Every
weapon hovered in magnetic suspension along seamless black panels, outlined in
sharp orange readouts.
Behind the main console stood a man with a half-burned face and two
mechanical fingers tapping against a transparent screen. His voice was deep,
ragged, and bored.
"You
don't look like you're here to browse."
Kael
stepped forward, every movement controlled.
"I need
something quiet. Something that will hit
like a truck."
The man
didn't blink or smirk. He eyed the
jacket Kael wore as if evaluating what caliber of man he was looking at. Then he turned and keyed a sequence into the
wall rack. One of the panels spun inward
and produced a few hidden weapons. Graveburn picked up the one on the far left
and turned around, placing it on the counter.
It was longer than a pistol, but shorter than a rifle, with a sleek
violet and chrome finish. It had veins that glowed deep purple on the
sides. A blue line traced its edges, an
indicator from Kael's AI.
"VX-Spectre,"
the man said. "Fires arc-gel compressed
bolts. Silenced discharge. No bark, but Bites like a tiger shark. It'll throw a grown man through a concrete
wall. I call it Dizzy."
"Dizzy?"
Kael asked.
"Yeah. For
dismemberment."
"How many
shots?" Kael asked.
"Twelve
per capsule. You won't need that
many. 8000 Jewels."
Kael
handed over the stack of Jewels. No bargaining or further questions.
"If Someone's
expecting you, that should even the odds," the man said as he took the jewels. He
watched Kael holster the Specter beneath his coat and turn towards the
door. He spoke over his shoulder, "It
won't matter what they're expecting."
Rika:
Unknown Location
She came
to with the sound of buzzing lights and men laughing.
Her head
throbbed. She sat on cold concrete and her wrists were bound to a steel ring
behind her back. The air reeked of neon grease, and synth liquor.
She was
in a makeshift holding cell with welded bars and coded locks. Not corp-built, Jackal
made. Crude and brutal, but functional. The
worst part was she wasn't alone. Across
from her, two girls sat huddled in silence, maybe seventeen, maybe less. One
looked dazed. The other avoided eye contact completely. Next to her cell, another girl lay
unconscious, pale and twitching. Rika
tried to shift, but her wrists were tight. She winced—and that's when one of
them noticed she was awake.
"Hey,
she's up."
Boots
approached. Black leather with glowing fangs stitched over the toe. The Jackal
grinned through gold teeth and crouched low by her cell.
"Welcome
back, darling. You're not gonna like where you're going, but you won't remember
it anyway, so that's nice."
He
laughed and turned away, tossing a half-lit stim onto the floor.
Another
Jackal across the room barked:
"Transport's
in two hours. Neuroclinic's expecting four. That doc's gonna wipe 'em squeaky
clean. Like they never had names."
"And
then?"
"Black
Key'll handle it. Fresh clients. Clean slates."
More
laughter. One joked about auction bids. Another mimicked a girl crying. Rika felt her stomach churn, but her rage
anchored her. This was what Sovereign had seen.
This was what Kalen had accepted to stop. They stepped into the hall cackling as they
went.
1hr later
"Great
news girls! Transport is early!" the jackal said with a malevolent laugh,
stepping back into the room with three others.
The words
filled Rika with dread. She couldn't
think of a worst way to live the rest of her life, but she didn't scream like
the others when the steel clamps unlocked and the Jackals stepped in with their
neural cuffs and tranquilizers. One of the girls tried to kick and got a shock
rod to the ribs. The unconscious girl
was hoisted like cargo. Rika stayed
still, letting the tears run down her face quietly. She and Kael had made it this far in life
never needing to resort to violence.
Sure it was around them, but they navigated through it. New Vire was strange like that. If you played by the rules and kept to
yourself, you could get by alright. At
least, they did. But that world was gone
now. She felt the despair bloom in her
chest like ink in water. This was
it. They were going to scrub her clean; strip
her of identity to be sold off like salvage.
She didn't even get to say goodbye.
Her lips trembled as she whispered through clenched teeth:
"Kael… I'm sorry."
And then──BOOM
Except,
there was no sound. Only motion. The
Jackal closest to the cage exploded sideways.
His entire left side was gone; a wet mist and shredded armor slammed
into the wall. Another turned, stunned. His legs ripped away a second later and
launched across the room in a violent blur of blood and armor. Still…no sound. The two remaining guards spun screaming,
weapons half raised. That's when Kael
dropped between them like a blur. There
was a flash of a blade; a whisper. He
spun in a low arc and came up; clean, lethal, surgical. Both Jackals fell mid-shout, necks opening
into clean red crescents. Their bodies
jerked and fingers spasmed, firing their weapons into the floor and walls
before falling silent. Kael stood up in
the smoke, eyes locked, chest rising slow.
His face was unreadable, but his presence filled the room like a force
field. The two conscious girls screamed,
but Rika…just stared in awe. Silent and
unmoving. Tears streaked her cheeks, but
this time they were from the impossibility of what just happened. Kael turned towards her. The hard lines of his face twitched. Something almost breaking through.
"Rika."
She shook
her head, barely a breath.
"How did
you…"
Kael
didn't answer. He just knelt, pulled a
pulse cutter from his belt, and began
slicing though the restraints.
"It's
over," he said quietly. "They don't get to rewrite you."
Rika
looked at him like she didn't know him at all.
Because she didn't. Not anymore. Kael
finished cutting her binds.
"Can you
walk?"
She
nodded, legs shaky as she stood, heart racing with unprocessed fear.
The two
younger girls huddled near the corner, silent now, too terrified to ask
questions.
Then
Kael's HUD flared—
[ALERT:
Hostile Activity Detected]
JACKAL KILL SQUAD INBOUND.
MULTIPLE HEAT SIGNATURES – SOUTH ENTRY.
LEADER CLASS IDENTIFIED: JACKAL BRUTE // THREAT LEVEL 5.
[STATUS: ENGAGE WITH EXTREME CAUTION.]
A
flashing yellow caution glyph spread across his vision like a rising
sun. A short dossier appeared beneath it:
// JACKAL
BRUTE //
Cybernetic-modified
enforcer. High-density muscle grafts. Reactive dermal armor. Kills for status.
Favored weapons: Slug-mace / concussion cannon.
Primary
weakness: Agility-based evasion. Unknown if this variant has enhancements.
Kael's
hand gripped Dizzy beneath his coat.
The
stealth window was gone. Fire would follow.
He turned to the girls.
"All of
you—move. Now."
Rika
looked at him, seeing the shift in his stance, the absolute calm. This was a man who had already decided to
kill again. They followed him.
Kael
stopped at the base of the stairwell, eyes scanning the corridors like they
were schematics.
"Rika.
Take the girls. Northeast hall. Level three access shaft. I'll draw them."
Rika
didn't argue. She grabbed the girls and
vanished into the shadows.
Kael
turned back, calm as ice.
"AI—recommend
optimal kill scenario. Current inventory only."
[Analyzing
environment…]
Three exits. Two choke points. Hostiles: Five. Brute class confirmed.
Suggested course: Kill corridor. Trigger delay. Blast radius optimization.
A
holographic projection unfolded across his HUD—glowing red outlines mapping the
perfect spot.
The AI
highlighted a corridor just outside the loading dock: narrow, poorly lit, with
exposed conduits overhead.
Recommended
trap: Frag core + overload fuse + concussion line. Delay: 1.6 seconds post
motion detection.
Projected result: Maximum carnage. Brute partially neutralized. Survivors
exposed.
Kael
dropped his gear fast—silent, surgical.
He wired
the overload fuse to a repurposed battery core from the dead Jackals' gear
belt, tied it into a stripped det cable from the security cell rig, and buried
it behind a loose floor panel.
One
breath.
Two.
[Trap
Armed.]
Kael
stepped back into the dark.
No more
waiting.
No more
warnings.
There
would be no survivors to tell the story this time.
The
Jackals moved fast.
Heavy boots slammed against rusted steel, echoing under the shriek of blaring
music that poured from wall-mounted speakers and shoulder-implanted amplifiers.
The track pounded like a war drum—distorted bass, glitching vocals, and
percussive snarls over a musical pattern that synced to their cybernetic
implants in real time. It wasn't just noise. It was command.
Their
voices cut through it as they advanced in formation—four gunners surrounding a
brute laced in chrome-fused body mods, a living battering ram draped in
reactive armor.
"Infra
scan's picking up movement—this way!"
The brute
didn't speak. It exhaled.
A deep, modulated growl rumbled from a subwoofer buried in its chestplate,
syncing to the track with an unsettling, almost ritualistic rhythm.
The music
spiked—a beat drop laced with static and synth growl—as they rounded the
corner.
Motion
trip triggered.
[1.6 seconds.]
Too late.
The floor
exploded.
A focused
shockwave ripped horizontally through the corridor—fire blasted from both ends
as the entire vented panel detonated inward.
The first Jackal
evaporated—vaporized in a split-second pulse of molten shrapnel and flame. The second screamed, his
audio mods distorting mid-yell, as the blast tore through his side, flinging
him like a doll against the opposite wall.
The brute
took it head-on.
Armor cracked. One shoulder ignited. His balance staggered—but the music
only got louder, roaring from internal amps. The fight wasn't stopping. It
was hitting crescendo.
Kael
moved before the smoke settled.
He
dropped low from the shadows, slid forward, and fired two Dizzy rounds at the
third Jackal's skull. The first shot went wide.
The second didn't.
CRACK.
SPLATTER. SLUMP.
The
fourth spun—music stuttering in his earpiece. His weapon lifted, but Kael was
already beside him with his blade drawn.
One clean arc stopped the jackal's beat forever. The body dropped.
Only the
brute remained.
It loomed
in the smoke, body twitching with twitch-sync feedback, eyes glowing red behind
a fractured mask.
The music shifted again—low, violent, tribal. The brute's personal track. Its
kill mode.
Kael rose
slowly.
The brute
roared—a sound that wasn't natural.
It came from within and without, funneled through external speakers and
internal cyber-acoustics, shaking the floor beneath them.
Kael
didn't flinch.
"Round
two."
The brute charged.
Steel arms slammed
into the walls, sparks flying as it accelerated like a freight engine wrapped
in bone and armor. Its right hand twisted mid-swing—unfolding into a slug-mace,
piston-driven and lined with impact studs.
Kael didn't move until the last second. He sidestepped low, barely
clearing the full-body lunge. The brute's weapon punched through the wall,
leaving a crater the size of a man's chest. Dust rained down.
Kael spun, firing
two rounds into its side, but the armor the brute wore must've had advanced
dissipating technology that made Dizzy's brutal silent shots less effective. Still, one shot struck a seam beneath the
shoulder plating and a spurt of fluid hissed from the wound, but the brute
didn't falter.
"Tissue damage
detected. Core systems intact," his AI noted coldly.
"Recommend mobility targeting. Aim for the knees."
Kael ducked another
swipe and dove into a slide under the brute's second arm. He planted a
compression charge against its calf armor mid-motion and vaulted to his feet.
Boom.
The brute stumbled,
its leg half-seizing, balance broken.
Kael didn't
hesitate.
He lunged—multiple
strikes to the exposed side, blade finding shallow purchase. Sparks. Flesh.
Fluid. Metal.
The brute roared and
backhanded him with full force.
Kael flew into a
crate, spine slamming hard enough to crack the wood.
He
grunted—rolled—and came up bleeding, lip split, ribs screaming.
But the AI fed him
oxygen modulation.
His vision cleared.
And he smiled.
"You hit like a
corporation."
His AI pinged:
"Armor breach detected—left dorsal seam exposed. Core conduit vulnerable.
Recommend precision shot."
The Brute bellowed
and charged again, but Kael didn't run. He pivoted just enough to slip under
the swinging piston arm and stepped in closer than anyone aiming to survive
would've dared done. But he wasn't
aiming to survive.
The brute's armor
was cracked, steaming from the earlier blasts—but its spine plating had
shifted, exposing a seam just beneath the shoulder actuator.
Kael lunged, dodging
another wild swing, and jammed the muzzle of Dizzy up into the gap—wedging it
deep between steel and synth muscle. A close-range blind spot. The kind most
Jackals never noticed because no one ever lived long enough to exploit it.
"Core proximity
confirmed," his AI said. "Fire now."
Kael didn't
hesitate.
BOOM.
The brute arched
back, spasming, limbs locking as the compressed arc-gel tore upward through its
internals—melting servo conduits, shredding stabilizers, and overloading its
central chassis. A gout of black fluid sprayed from the seams as sparks erupted
down its back like a dying firework. It
staggered once. Then dropped—dead weight collapsing with the sound of metal
against misery.
Kael stood over the
ruin, chest heaving, blood dripping from his mouth. His left arm trembled. His
ribs throbbed with every breath. But he
didn't lower the weapon.
"You don't get to
take her," he whispered.
The light from the
brute's glowing red eyes was fading, and the music finally stopped. Kael fired
straight into the shattered faceplate.
Just to make sure.
He stood there, over
the wreckage, blood dripping from his hands—but alive.
Barely.
"Target eliminated,"
the AI said.
"Vitals compromised. Pulsepack recommended."
Kael reached for the
injector on his belt.
He still had a
promise to keep. This wasn't over.