**The Cold Shadow of the Border Prison**
The border prison of the Fierce Claw Empire rose like a black fang from the barren plain, encased in towering iron walls and a shimmering magical barrier that swallowed sunlight whole. The air was perpetually damp, thick with rot and the copper tang of old blood. When Fa was finally dragged through its gates by the dwarf escort, the beastman guards shoved her into the deepest cell block. The iron door crashed shut behind her with a deafening boom that rang in her ears long after, sealing the outside world away.
The cell was a tomb of dim blue light cast by a single flickering mana-lamp. Fa rubbed her rope-burned wrists and scanned the gloom. The walls were scarred with claw marks and desperate, half-erased runes left by previous prisoners. In the far corner, chained by heavy enchanted shackles, lay a battered female beastman—fur matted, body mapped with whip scars and cauterized burns. She breathed shallowly, head bowed, as though the world had already ended for her.
Fa approached cautiously and crouched. "Hey. I'm Fa. What's your name? Why are they keeping you here?"
The beastwoman raised her head slowly. Sharp yellow eyes glared out beneath tangled silver-tipped ears. "Get lost," she rasped, voice raw as rusted iron. Then she dropped her gaze again, shutting Fa out completely.
Fa didn't push. She retreated to the opposite corner, pulled the small iron statue Kate had given her from her pocket—the little beastman warrior wearing a helmet and gripping a battle axe—and gently stroked its edges. "Kate… I hope you and your mom and little sister are safe," she whispered, homesickness softening her voice.
**Kate's Sister**
At the sound of that name, the beastwoman's ears snapped upright. Her head whipped around; her pupils shrank to slits as she stared at the statue in Fa's hands. "Where… did you get that?" Her voice trembled with shock, fury, and something dangerously close to hope. The chains clanked as she strained forward.
Fa instinctively hugged the statue to her chest. "Kate gave it to me. He's a beastman kid from Gold Merchant Fortress. We helped his family; this was his thank-you gift. He said it was really important, something passed down in his family."
The beastwoman dragged herself closer despite the shackles biting into her wrists. "Kate is my little brother." The words cracked like breaking ice. "How do you know him? Are they safe—Mom, little sister, all of them?"
Fa's heart stuttered. "His mom was cursed; we healed her. They're doing okay now in Gold Merchant Fortress—tough, but together. When the blood elf Sist attacked the fortress, Kate led us to the enemy hideout and saved everyone. That's when he gave me this. He said it belonged to his sister… but he never told me your name."
The beastwoman stared at the statue, fingers shaking as she reached out to trace the axe's axe. "This was our grandfather's. Legendary general of the Fierce Claw Empire. Dad gave it to Kate before he disappeared." Her throat worked. "Kate kept it all this time…"
Fa softened her voice. "He told me, 'If you ever meet a beastwoman with silver ear-tips and a battle scar on her forehead, tell her: Little brother has grown up. I'll protect Mom and our sister. And I'll wait for big sis to come home.'"
The beastwoman—Kayla—shuddered violently. Chains rattled like funeral bells. Blood dripped from her clenched fists. "That bastard Rock," she snarled from deep in her chest. "He framed me, threw me in here, and now my family…"
Fa leaned closer. "Who are you?"
Kayla drew a steadying breath. "Kayla. Fifth General of the Fierce Claw Empire… and Kate's older sister. Five years ago I returned to the legion to investigate our father's disappearance. Two months ago they accused me of treason. Only after they locked me up did I learn the truth—Grum and Rock are running crystal-core smuggling rings together. They wanted my authority and my power. I got in their way, so they buried me here."
Fa's eyes widened. "Rock? The Steelmelt Alliance general? He's in league with Grum?"
Kayla's laugh was bitter as bile. "He was bought long ago. Their tentacles reach both empires. They enslave miners, smuggle resources, and they're breeding something—some abomination—to conquer the entire continent."
She fixed burning yellow eyes on Fa. "Your turn. How did you end up in my cell?"
Fa's fists tightened. "We found their secret mine in the Corroded Mountains, saw Grum trading with Cthulhu cultists and Sist. Vice-Commander Durin died protecting us… and Rock handed me over like I was nothing."
Kayla nodded slowly. "Then we share the same enemies. And the same war."
**Rescue Outside the Prison**
On the hillside, Arya's bowstring sang as wind blades sliced through brush. Rex's nano-drones hovered, painting thermal silhouettes across his visor. "Northeast corner blind spot in three… two…"
Salsa's spirit form rippled through the barbed wire, dark tendrils testing the barrier. "TISK, blow the west ventilation shaft—I need thirty undisturbed seconds."
TISK's knuckles whitened around his thirty-kilogram warhammer. Runes glowed. "Rex killed the camera feed. TISK slammed the hammer into the ground; metal spikes erupted under the patrols' ankles, locking joints. Before they could scream, the hammer swept sideways, crumpling armor like tin. "Give me rust!" he roared. The breastplates exploded into corrosive shards.
**Choice in the Dark Corridor**
Arya's wind arrows burst the last lock just as Fa was burning through Kayla's shackles with raw mana. Kayla flexed her blood-soaked arm. "They took my Thunder Claws—sub-level two armory."
Boots thundered. Rex's voice crackled: "Seventeen seconds till reinforcements!"
Arya grabbed Kayla's wrist. "Armory's the other way—move!"
They sprinted. Kayla staggered; Fa caught her. "You're bleeding again."
"I'm iron, remember?" Kayla grinned through red teeth. "Kate used to say I was made of it."
Six shield-bearing beastmen rounded the corner, runes glowing crimson.
Arya loosed blinding light arrows. Fa slapped the wall; stone flowed like wet sand, hardening into barricades. Kayla shoulder-checked a side door—torture storage, wrong room. But there, on the rack, sealed behind blue runes, gleamed her Thunder Claws.
Fa ripped down rusted chains, melted them into liquid metal, and flung the stream at the seal. Kayla's hand closed around the hilts.
**Thunder Claws Awakened**
The moment beast-mark met weapon, violet lightning exploded outward. Kayla's eyes blazed. "Miss me?"
She became thunder itself—carving arcs through shields, riding the recoil up the wall, hanging inverted from the ceiling to rain electrified death. Six guards dropped smoking and twitching.
**Metal Tide**
TISK laughed wildly as his hammer turned the courtyard into a blender of flying steel. "Taste the beard's meteor shower!"
**Prison Barrier Collapse**
Rex sweated over holographic keyboards while Salsa's dark wolf knight strangled the mana crystal atop the east tower. When Rex finally severed the power conduits, the crystal cracked—then shattered. The entire barrier screamed and collapsed in a blue-white tsunami.
**Final Breakout**
Kayla, claws screaming with lightning, carved the last elite guard's throat. She seized Fa, crouched, and launched—they rocketed upward on a pillar of electricity, clearing the wall in a single bound.
Arya whistled; wind caught her like wings.
TISK triggered his final war cry—"The mountains roar!"—and every scrap of metal in the yard became a storm that pinned the remaining guards to the earth.
Salsa, pale as death, opened a dark gate. They dove through just as the prison's core detonated behind them, the shockwave hurling them into the grass.
Kayla rose first, Thunder Claws still sparking. She looked back at the burning ruin. "Grum thought he could chain the Fierce Claw's thunder. He was wrong."
Dawn bled across the horizon as six silhouettes vanished into the plains, leaving the collapsed prison smoldering behind them—only the first brick to fall from Grum's crumbling empire.
**The Sixth Companion in the Cave**
Later, in a damp hidden cave, Kayla leaned against the wall and exhaled shakily. "I owe you my life."
Fa smiled. "We have the same enemy. That's payment enough."
She introduced everyone properly.
Kayla met each gaze in turn. "Grum and Rock aren't just smuggling crystal cores. They're breeding something alive down there—something that will eat the continent if it wakes up."
Arya's ears flattened. "What kind of creature?"
"I don't know yet. But I know where they're keeping it… and I know how to kill it."
Fa extended her hand. "Then come with us."
Kayla clasped it firmly, claws retracted but lightning still dancing between her fingers. "I was born for this war. From now on, I fight beside you."
Around the small fire, six shadows became seven. The road ahead was soaked in blood and betrayal, but for the first time in years, General Kayla of the Thunder Claws felt the storm inside her sing again.
And somewhere far away, in Gold Merchant Fortress, a little beastman boy clutched an empty spot on his shelf where his grandfather's statue used to be—and smiled, because he knew his big sister was finally coming home.