Linkon City was burning.
Not literally—not yet. But the screams carried through the night air like smoke, visible in the way terror is always visible when it consumes a population that had believed themselves safe.
Nana could hear it from the forest. Could hear the sirens wailing in the distance, the staccato crack of gunfire, the deeper boom of military weapons being deployed in urban areas they'd never been designed for. Could hear the roar of creatures that shouldn't exist outside of nightmares.
The second Avalon had arrived.
Beside her, Zayne leaned heavily against a tree, his breathing labored. Frost still clung to his clothes, his hair, spreading in unconscious patterns across the bark behind him. The transformation was slowing—67% complete, her mother had said. That meant 33% still to go. Still changing. Still becoming.
He looked at her with eyes that were trying desperately to stay focused despite the pain and exhaustion.
"The city," he managed. "We have to—"
"I know." Nana's voice came out rough. She was breathing hard herself—multiple injuries from the past days catching up with her now that the adrenaline was fading. Her ribs ached where the giant had struck her. Her shoulder where she'd broken through the containment door. A dozen smaller injuries that her enhanced healing was working on but hadn't fully repaired yet.
She was strong. Enhanced. Modified to survive things that would kill a normal human.
But she wasn't invincible. And right now, she felt every single injury like a weight pulling her down.
Through the trees, she could see lights. The edge of the city. Linkon's outskirts where residential areas met the forest—nice houses, safe neighborhoods, places where families lived and children played and people went about their lives completely unaware of what had been built beneath the ground they walked on.
Those neighborhoods were being evacuated now. She could see it happening—emergency vehicles with lights flashing, people streaming out of houses with whatever they could carry, children crying, parents trying desperately to stay calm while herding their families toward whatever safety the government was promising.
Except there was no safety. Not anymore.
Because the creatures that had been contained in the facility—the hundreds of hybrids and vampires and demons that had been created as test subjects for Avalon, that had been grown in glass cylinders and monitored and studied—were loose now.
And they were hunting.
Nana watched as a hybrid emerged from the tree line two hundred meters to her left. It moved with predatory grace, its enhanced body allowing it to cross the distance between forest and suburb in seconds. A family was loading their car—mother, father, two young children.
They didn't see it coming.
Nana was moving before the thought fully formed. Running on injuries that screamed protest, her aether core blazing blue as she pushed her body past its limits one more time.
She reached the hybrid just as it lunged for the smaller child.
Her fist connected with the creature's skull mid-leap, the impact sending it flying sideways into a parked car. The vehicle crumpled from the force. The hybrid dissolved before it could recover.
The family stared at her—at the bloodied, injured woman who had just appeared from nowhere and killed a monster with her bare hands.
"RUN!" Nana shouted at them. "Get in your car and DRIVE! Don't stop until you're out of the city!"
The father didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed his children, practically threw them into the car, and peeled out of the driveway with his wife barely inside.
Nana watched them go. Then turned to scan for more threats.
There were more. Of course there were more. The forest edge was crawling with movement now—shapes emerging from the darkness, drawn by the sounds of chaos, by the scent of fear, by the instincts that had been engineered into them.
Behind her, she heard footsteps. Zayne had followed, moving slower than her but still moving. Ice spread from his boots with each step, leaving a trail of frost across the suburban street.
"How many?" he asked.
"Too many." Nana's voice was flat. "Way too many."
In the distance, she could see the downtown area. Linkon's city center—skyscrapers and business districts and the densely populated areas where the majority of the civilian population lived.
Where the creatures were heading.
The military had set up checkpoints at major intersections. Barricades and armed soldiers and the heavy weapons they deployed against Wanderers during major incursions. Nana could see the muzzle flashes from here—sustained fire, coordinated volleys, the tactics they'd developed over years of fighting Wanderer threats.
It wasn't enough.
The creatures from the facility weren't standard Wanderers. They were enhanced. Modified. Built to survive in Avalon's harsh environment—which meant they could survive much, much more than standard military tactics could deliver.
A vampire cleared a barricade in a single leap, landing in the middle of a squad of soldiers. Nana was too far away to help. Could only watch as the creature tore through them before more soldiers brought it down with concentrated fire.
But by then, two more vampires had breached a different checkpoint. And a giant was systematically destroying a third.
The defenses were crumbling.
"We can't save them all," Zayne said quietly. He was looking at the same scene, understanding the same terrible math. "There are too many creatures. Too few of us. Even with—" he gestured at his frost-covered hands, at the ice evol that was still manifesting uncontrollably, "—even with this, we can't—"
"I know." Nana's fists clenched. "But we can save some. We can fight. We can—"
Her hunter watch beeped. The emergency channel—she'd forgotten she still had it on her wrist. The screen lit up with a priority message, broadcasted to every active hunter in the region.
CATEGORY 5 INCURSION. ALL HUNTERS REPORT IMMEDIATELY. CIVILIAN EVACUATION IN PROGRESS. UNKNOWN HOSTILE ENTITIES. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED.
Unknown hostile entities. They didn't even know what was attacking them. Didn't understand that these weren't Wanderers—they were something the government itself had created.
Created and lost control of.
Nana's watch beeped again. A different message. This one not from the hunter association.
EMERGENCY BROADCAST - GOVERNMENT ALERT
Linkon City under evacuation order. Proceed immediately to designated safe zones. Do not attempt to fight hostile entities. Military and Hunter forces are responding. Remain calm.
Remain calm. As if calm was something anyone could manage right now.
The broadcast continued, repeating the same instructions on loop. Evacuation zones. Safe routes. Government assurances that the situation was under control.
Lies. All of it lies.
The government knew exactly what was attacking the city. Knew because they'd funded the facility. Had overseen the program. Had approved the creation of Avalon and the specimens and everything that had led to this moment.
And now they were trying to cover it up. Trying to evacuate the city without admitting what they'd done. Without taking responsibility for the nightmare they'd unleashed.
Nana's hands shook with fury.
"They're going to deny it," she said. "Even now. Even with people dying. They're going to pretend this was just another Wanderer attack. They're going to seal the records and classify the facility and—"
"Nana." Zayne's voice was gentle but firm. "Look."
He pointed toward the forest behind them. Toward where the facility's entrance had been. Where the iron door still hung open, creatures still emerging in ones and twos and small groups.
Smoke was rising from that direction. Not normal smoke—thick, black, billowing clouds that spoke of something burning at extremely high temperatures. The kind of fire that didn't happen by accident.
An explosion. A big one.
Someone had destroyed the facility.
Not just shut it down. Not just sealed the doors and hoped to contain the damage. Destroyed it. Completely. The smoke suggested fuel fires—the kind that came from demolition charges designed to eliminate evidence.
The government was covering its tracks. Making sure no one could ever prove what had been built beneath that forest. Making sure the facility that had created both Avalon and the specimens would vanish without a trace.
Except the creatures were already loose. The damage was already done. And somewhere in that burning facility—
Everyone was dead.
The scientists who had monitored Avalon. The soldiers who had guarded the specimens. The doctors who had injected the serums. Her parents who had overseen it all.
Captain Jenna, who had opened the escape route in the final moments.
All of them. Gone.
Consumed by the fire or the creatures or the desperate final act of a government trying to eliminate every witness to what they'd done.
Nana felt something twist in her chest. Not grief—not for most of them. They'd earned their fate. Had built the nightmare and then been consumed by it.
But Jenna. Jenna who had looked conflicted in those final hours. Who had ordered the soldiers to let Nana break free. Who had opened the blast doors and given them a path to escape.
Jenna hadn't deserved to die in that facility.
But she had anyway. Because that's what happened when you worked for people who saw human lives as data points.
"We need to move," Zayne said, pulling Nana from her thoughts. "The airport. If the evacuation is happening, that's where people will be concentrated. That's where the creatures will go."
He was right. Nana could see it now—the logic of it. The airport was the largest evacuation point in the city. Thousands of people would be flooding there, desperate to board any flight that could get them out. All that fear and panic and desperate humanity packed into one location.
The creatures would be drawn to it like moths to flame.
They ran.
Through the suburbs, past abandoned cars and houses with doors left open in the rush to evacuate. Past checkpoints where soldiers looked at them with weapons raised before recognizing hunter gear and waving them through. Past civilians who stared at the injured woman and the frost-covered man running toward danger instead of away from it.
The airport was chaos.
Even from a distance, Nana could see it. The parking structures were jammed with abandoned vehicles. The terminal buildings glowed with emergency lighting. Thousands of people pressed against the security barriers, trying to get inside, trying to board planes that were already full, trying to find any way out of a city that was rapidly becoming a death trap.
And surrounding it all—moving through the crowds with predatory purpose—were the creatures.
Not dozens. Hundreds. Maybe more. Every hybrid and vampire and demon that had been growing in those glass cylinders, all of them drawn to this concentration of prey.
The military had established a perimeter. Heavy weapons. Coordinated fire teams. Hunter units deployed alongside soldiers in the kind of mixed-force operation that usually only happened during Category 5 Wanderer attacks.
It wasn't enough. Would never be enough.
Nana and Zayne pushed through the crowd, moving against the flow of evacuating civilians. People shouted at them—warnings, questions, desperate pleas for help. Nana ignored them all. Had to. If she stopped to help every person who needed it, she'd never reach the areas where she could make a real difference.
They reached the military perimeter just as a giant broke through.
The creature was massive—easily six meters tall, its crystallized armor gleaming under the airport's emergency lights. It had smashed through the barricade like it was made of paper, scattering soldiers and crushing a checkpoint station under its enormous feet.
Nana moved without thinking. Her aether core blazed, that familiar blue glow intensifying as she channeled everything she had into a single strike.
She hit the giant's ankle—the weak point in its armor, the joint that bore all its weight. Her fist connected with enough force to shatter the crystallized plating and break the bone structure beneath.
The giant toppled.
Soldiers opened fire immediately, concentrated bursts that tore through the creature's vulnerable spots now that it was down. It dissolved within seconds.
But three more were already breaking through at different points in the perimeter.
Beside her, Zayne raised his hands. Frost spread outward in a wave—not the explosive detonation from the arena, but something more controlled. More focused. The temperature dropped sharply, ice forming on the ground in front of the advancing giants.
They slipped. Lost their footing on the sudden ice sheet. Fell hard enough to crack the tarmac.
The hunters and soldiers took advantage immediately, converging on the fallen creatures with everything they had.
"Good," Nana breathed. "That's good. We can—"
A scream cut through the noise. Different from the general chaos—this was a child's scream, high and terrified and close.
Nana's head snapped toward the sound.
A small group of civilians had been separated from the main evacuation crowd—a family with two young children, trapped against a wall of the terminal building. A hybrid was stalking toward them, its predatory focus absolute.
The parents were trying to shield their children. Trying to be brave. Trying to buy time for someone to save them.
No one was coming. The soldiers were overwhelmed. The hunters were engaged with larger threats. This family was alone.
Nana ran.
Her injuries screamed at her. Her aether core was running low from sustained combat. Her body was approaching its limits—even enhanced physiology had limits, and she'd been pushing past hers for days now.
But she ran anyway.
She reached the hybrid just as it lunged. Caught it mid-leap. Used its own momentum to redirect it away from the family and into the ground. The impact cratered the concrete.
The hybrid thrashed. She held on. Drove her fist into its head once, twice, until it stopped moving and dissolved.
The father grabbed his children and ran, pulling them toward the relative safety of the terminal. The mother followed, glancing back once at Nana with an expression of profound gratitude.
Nana didn't watch them go. Was already scanning for the next threat. And the next. And the next.
Because they kept coming. The creatures just kept coming. Wave after wave of nightmares that the facility had created and the government had unleashed and now everyone else had to survive.
The airport perimeter held for another ten minutes.
Then it broke.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just gradually—defensive positions being overrun one by one, soldiers falling back to secondary lines, hunters being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
The evacuation continued even as the defenses crumbled. Planes took off every few minutes, packed with civilians who were probably the lucky ones. Who would make it out before the city fell completely.
Nana fought until she couldn't anymore. Until her aether core dimmed to almost nothing. Until her injuries stopped healing and just kept hurting. Until every movement was agony and her body was screaming for rest.
Beside her, Zayne fought too. His ice evol had stabilized—the transformation was complete now, she realized. His body had finished restructuring. He was enhanced now. Specimen and weapon, just like her.
And he was using it. Using every ounce of power they'd forced into him to protect people he'd never met. To save civilians who had no idea they owed their lives to the same program that had created the threats.
When the military finally ordered a full retreat—when the airport perimeter was officially lost and the remaining civilians were being evacuated through emergency routes—Nana and Zayne collapsed against the wall of a terminal building and just breathed.
Around them, the airport was in ruins. Fires burned in multiple locations. Bodies lay scattered—soldiers, hunters, civilians who hadn't made it to the evacuation points in time. Creatures still prowled the area, fighting each other now that the human prey had mostly fled.
"We saved some," Zayne said quietly. His voice was hoarse from exertion. "Not all. But some."
"Some," Nana repeated. The word felt hollow.
They'd saved hundreds. Maybe thousands. Had fought until their bodies gave out and protected people who would never know their names.
But the facility had created tens of thousands of creatures. Had been running for eleven years. Had been pumping monsters into Avalon and harvesting data and building an army that should never have existed.
And now that army was loose in the city.
Linkon wasn't Avalon yet. But it was getting close.
In the distance, sirens continued to wail. Helicopters circled overhead—news crews, probably, documenting the disaster. Or maybe government surveillance, making sure no one got footage that was too revealing.
The cover-up was already beginning. The lies being constructed. The narrative being shaped.
Just another Wanderer attack. Tragic but contained. The government response was exemplary. Trust us. We know what we're doing.
Except they didn't. Had never known. Had played god and lost control and now civilians were paying the price.
Nana looked at Zayne—at the man she loved, who had been turned into a weapon to fight threats that the government itself had created. Who had fought anyway because that's what doctors do. They save people. Even when those people don't deserve saving.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
Zayne looked at the burning city. At the creatures still hunting in the shadows. At the evidence of everything that had been unleashed.
"We tell the truth," he said. "All of it. Avalon. The facility. The specimens. Everything they tried to hide."
"They'll deny it. They destroyed all the evidence."
"Not all the evidence." Zayne looked at her. Then at himself. At their enhanced bodies, their impossible abilities, their existence as living proof of what had been done. "We're still here. We're the evidence they can't destroy."
Nana nodded slowly. He was right.
They were specimens. Weapons. Things that had been built in a laboratory.
But they were also witnesses. Survivors. The only people left alive who knew the truth about what had happened beneath that forest.
The government had tried to silence them. Had tried to eliminate every trace of their crime.
But they'd failed.
Because Nana and Zayne were still standing. Still breathing. Still ready to fight.
Not just the creatures anymore.
Now they'd fight for the truth.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.