The truck came in too fast for a vehicle that heavy.
It tore down the service road near Green Lake like it was trying to outrun its own shadow. Gravel spat from beneath its tires. The suspension groaned under reckless steering corrections. The container on the back rattled violently, metal panels flexing inward and outward with dull, rhythmic impacts.
Inside the cab, the driver laughed to himself.
Mid-forties. Thick neck. Scar splitting one eyebrow. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, ash falling unchecked onto his stained shirt.
"Shut up back there," he muttered, slapping the dashboard as another heavy thud shook the container. "You'll get your stretch soon enough."
Something answered from the back.
A layered, wet grinding sound.
The driver grinned wider.
"Yeah. Yeah. Smell it, don't you? Fresh air."
He turned off the main road and cut toward an abandoned warehouse complex near the lake's industrial fringe. Rusted fencing leaned inward. Windows were shattered. Weeds had claimed the cracks in the pavement.
He parked crookedly beside the largest building.
The engine cut.
Silence lasted exactly three seconds.
Then....
KRAAAHHH!!!!
The container slammed from the inside so violently the truck rocked on its suspension.
The driver stepped out casually, stretching his back.
"Easy," he muttered. "Payment clears first."
He walked a few paces away and made a call.
"Yeah," he said when it connected. "Delivery's here. They're lively. Smell something already."
A pause.
He snorted.
"No, I didn't check the perimeter. That ain't my job."
Another pause.
"Yeah, yeah. Open it when I say."
He hung up and lit another cigarette.
Behind him, the container bulged outward.
Juno walked calmly along the outer path leading back toward the city.
The blue-haired girl followed half a step behind him now not hiding, but wary. Her golden eyes scanned everything with instinctive suspicion.
"You angered it," she said softly.
"The Mâchecroute?" Juno asked without looking at her.
"Yes."
"It'll survive," he replied. "They usually do."
She studied his right side briefly.
"You bleed," she observed.
He glanced at his arm.
A thin cut—long and clean, ran from wrist to elbow. It wasn't deep, but it wasn't trivial either. Dark red seeped steadily through torn fabric.
He frowned slightly.
"Irritating," he murmured.
For someone who had once stood above worlds, minor injuries felt disproportionately insulting.
They walked past the warehouse complex without particular notice.
Until...
Juno stopped.
The girl froze instantly.
The sound had changed.
What had been contained before muffled and rhythmic was now raw.
Bestial!.
Metal screamed, something tore.
The air filled with a scent that didn't belong in daylight. Rot? Iron? something older?.
The container behind them split open with a deafening rip.
KRAHHHH!
The back doors blew outward.
Metal hinges snapped.
Something massive forced its way through the gap.
Then another.
Then three at once.
They spilled out of the container like living nightmares finally allowed to breathe.
Six in total.
Each different.
Each wrong.
One stood on four elongated limbs, its spine arched high like a broken bridge. Skin gray and tight over visible bone ridges. No eyes just vertical slits where a face should have been.
Another dragged itself forward with clawed forelimbs while its lower half writhed in segmented muscle like a massive centipede fused to a humanoid torso.
A third towered upright, shoulders split open to reveal secondary jaws snapping sideways.
All of them turned their heads at the same time.
And locked onto Juno.
And the girl.
Their movements sharpened.
The truck driver leaned casually against the cab, cigarette glowing faintly.
He snickered.
"No pity," he muttered. "Two fresh ones. Didn't even have to hunt."
Impact
They rushed.
Fast.
Too fast for something that large.
The ground cracked under their acceleration.
The blue-haired girl stepped backward instinctively, breath catching.
Juno stepped forward.
His hand cut through the air.
There was no weapon visible.
But something invisible sharpened along his fingers an edge defined by compressed force and intent.
The first monster reached him
He moved. A single lateral motion.
Slash!
The creature's upper body separated from its lower half cleanly.
It collapsed in two pieces, ichor spraying across the cracked pavement.
Juno did not smile
He looked at his right arm again.
Blood dripped steadily.
The second monster lunged, secondary jaws snapping sideways.
Juno pivoted, but the creature's claw grazed his already injured arm.
The fabric tore wider.
Blood spattered.
He clicked his tongue softly.
The third and fourth came simultaneously from opposite angles.
The dragon girl moved instinctively—
Water surged upward from the lake behind them, coiling like a living whip.
She snapped her hand forward.
The water lashed across one monster's torso, crushing ribs inward with explosive force.
It screamed—a wet, tearing sound—and skidded across concrete.
But the other reached Juno first.
Claws raked downward.
Juno blocked with his forearm.
Impact cracked the ground beneath his feet.
His injury widened.
Pain flashed through him.
His expression hardened.
The truck driver laughed loudly from a distance.
"Yeah! Tear 'em up!"
Juno's eyes flicked briefly toward the sound.
Then back to the monsters.
Five remained.
They began circling now.
Juno rolled his injured shoulder once.
The bleeding slowed but did not stop.
His aura remained tightly compressed.
He did not want to release it fully.
Not here.
Not yet.
The dragon girl stood at his back again.
"You are weakened," she said quietly.
The monsters lunged again.
Juno stepped into them this time.
He closed distance instead of retreating.
The upright one swung its elongated arm downward—
Juno ducked beneath it, driving his palm upward into its ribcage.
The impact was silent.
Then the monster exploded from the inside.
Flesh ruptured outward in a violent spray.
The remaining three hesitated for a fraction of a second.
That hesitation cost one of them.
The dragon girl drove a compressed sphere.....
On the road a old Ferrari drove quietly, driving it was James and a young woman in her twenties. Suddenly the radar marker in her hand started beeping. Rapidly! She took out her device to notify captain mMarc. Then she sight another vehicle approaching behind them. "Fvckin' spies" disgust written all over her face.