The warehouse became a vortex of noise and motion. Rorke, a whirlwind of feral instinct, slammed into Jax, sending them both tumbling across the concrete. It was a brutal, primal struggle, a clash for dominance with no rules.
Anya didn't hesitate. She fired her sonic pistol at the Kronos drone. The concentrated blast of discordant sound shattered its internal gyros, sending it spinning into a wall where it exploded in a shower of sparks. "Kaelen, find the source! There will be a command vehicle nearby!"
Kaelen, his heart hammering, focused his audio-suite. He filtered out the snarls and the impacts of the fighting Lycans, pushing past the terrified whimpers of the scavengers. There—a faint, disciplined digital hum, a carrier wave for encrypted commands. It was coming from a block away.
"They're nearby! A heavy vehicle, parked on Durand Street!"
"Keep Jax from killing him!" Anya yelled, and then she was gone, sprinting out of the warehouse and into the maze of streets, a soldier on a new mission.
Kaelen turned back to the fight. Jax was stronger, more in control, but he was holding back, taking blows as he tried to subdue Rorke rather than maim him.
"Rorke!" Kaelen shouted, his voice amplified by his console. He couldn't speak the Lycan's language, but he could speak the one thing that had defined their existence. He played the Alpha Frequency. Not the full, controlling wave, but a fragmented, decaying echo of it.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating. Both Lycans froze mid-struggle, a wave of primal fear and Pavlovian response hitting them. Rorke whimpered, cowering. Jax snarled, fighting the ingrained terror with sheer will.
Then, Kaelen cut the sound and immediately replaced it with the pure, clean note he had broadcast from the Spire. The note of potential. The note of freedom.
The shift was palpable. The fear receded from Rorke's eyes, replaced by a dawning, horrifying clarity. He looked at his claws, at Jax, at the terrified scavengers. He saw what he had become. A low, mournful howl escaped his throat, a sound of utter despair.
On Durand Street, Anya found the Kronos vehicle—a six-wheeled armored transport. Two Kronos troopers were monitoring feeds from a second drone. She didn't give them a chance. A well-aimed plasma shot disabled the vehicle's engine. Another shot blew out their comms array. She advanced, her rifle leveled.
"Tell your bosses," she growled at the stunned troopers, "that the assets are no longer on the market. The pack is under new management. Now get the hell out of my city."
Back in the warehouse, Jax helped a shivering, mostly-human Rorke to his feet. They had found one of their own. But as Kaelen looked at the broken man, he knew the cost. The new hunters were here, and they saw the Lycans not as people, but as products. And the pack was fragile, traumatized, and lost. Protecting them was going to be a war on all fronts.