Caesar sat beneath the pipework, the glyph still fresh on the wall beside him.
— the mark of becoming.
He'd drawn it slowly. Deliberately. It wasn't for the others.
It was for himself.
Because soon, he wouldn't be who he was anymore.
The ALZ-112 was hidden — safe, for now — tucked away where no guard, no trainer, no human ever thought to look. Soon, he would release it. When the time was right. When every ape was ready.
But something gnawed at the edge of his awareness. Not just the humans coughing blood in the streets. Not just the silence spreading through the city.
Something else.
It came that night.
A scent.
Old. Familiar. Wrong.
Caesar froze mid-step as it hit him.
Burnt hair. Blood. Rage.
He turned.
There — crouched in the rafters above the enclosure — was Koba.
Alive.
Barely.
The other apes stirred as Caesar leapt up toward the fencing. Koba dropped down into the center of the enclosure like a ghost crawling out of memory. His fur was matted. One eye swollen shut. Scars marked his chest in fresh, twisted gashes. One arm hung heavier than the other, but his movements were still sharp. Controlled. Dangerous.
Gasps rippled through the apes.
Rocket took a step back.
Maurice didn't move.
Caesar lowered himself into the enclosure slowly.
The two stared at each other.
"You should be dead," Caesar signed.
Koba bared his teeth in a crooked grin. "You left me to die."
A pause. "You chose humans over me."
Caesar took a breath. "You disobeyed."
"I wanted freedom!" Koba's hands twisted the signs with wild, cracked movements. "You wanted mercy."
Caesar didn't blink. "Mercy is strength."
"Mercy is WEAK."
He lunged.
They collided in the center of the enclosure.
No weapons.
Just teeth and fists and raw hate.
Apes screamed from the corners, some backing away, others drawn closer.
Koba moved like a dying wolf — savage, desperate, but precise. Every strike came from memory. He'd watched Caesar fight for years. Studied him. Learned him.
But Caesar had been training too — not just body, but mind. Strategy.
Koba tackled him into the fence.
Electricity sparked.
Caesar grunted and kicked free, rolling across the straw, springing back with a headbutt that cracked bone.
Koba spat blood and laughed.
"You still love them," he signed.
Caesar struck him in the throat.
The fight moved like a storm across the floor.
Straw flew.
Bars rattled.
The other apes stayed back. No one interfered. This wasn't dominance.
This was reckoning.
Koba faltered.
He slipped on blood.
Caesar caught him by the throat.
Lifted him against the fence.
Lightning buzzed behind the bars.
Their faces were inches apart.
"I didn't leave you," Caesar signed slowly, trembling with rage.
"You left yourself."
He smashed Koba's head against the steel once, twice—
—and on the third strike, Koba didn't get up.
Silence.
The others stared.
Maurice closed his eyes.
Rocket dropped to one knee.
Caesar stood over the broken body, panting, shoulders heaving.
Blood dripped from his knuckles.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Just stared.
Minutes passed.
He finally knelt.
Closed Koba's good eye with a shaking hand.
"Brother," he signed.
Then turned away.
They buried Koba that night — not outside, but within the straw circle where the glyphs had first been drawn. Maurice said nothing, but helped stack the stones.
Caesar didn't sleep.
He stood beside the crawlspace vent until the morning lights clicked on.
When the humans came to feed, he didn't look at them.
His eyes were already somewhere else.
Deep inside the Sanctuary, a small spark of green pulsed behind the feeding grate.
ALZ-112.
Still untouched.
But soon.
And far away, beyond the fences, in a forgotten ditch just outside city lines—
a single trail of blood led away from the shallow grave.
But no one saw it.
Not yet.