The Outer Rifts were never meant to host an army.
They were where broken dimensions went to die—shards of skies that didn't match, floating slabs of continents, rivers that flowed uphill into nothing. Gravity was more of a suggestion than a rule.
But today, the chaos had a purpose.
Today, the Outer Rifts were a battlefield.
On one side: order.
On the other: teeth.
The Wolf King ArrivesThe ground shook before anyone saw him.
A low tremor ran through the fractured earth, rattling cracks in distant floating islands. Loose rock skipped and danced. Air warped with heat.
Then the first of them appeared.
A wolf-human hybrid stepped over a jagged ledge—seven feet of burning muscle, black fire leaking off his fur in slow, heavy embers. Then another. And another. And then an entire tide of them.
An army of monsters poured into the rift.
Their eyes glowed red-orange.
Their claws shimmered white-hot.
Their armor was crude but effective—patchworked from melted steel, scavenged alloys, and captured Buddy metals twisted into savage shapes.
Behind them all, towering above the pack, came the Wolf King.
He didn't hurry.
He walked.
Each step sank into the ground, leaving glowing, molten pawprints behind. His fur burned brighter than the rest of his army combined, black flames licking the air. Massive shoulders rolled with each stride. His gaze swept across the battlefield and curled into a cruel smile.
"This is the barrier they set in my path?"
His voice wasn't loud.
But it was everywhere.
The Buddies Hold the LineOpposite the Wolf King's forces, on a raised shelf of cracked bedrock stabilized with glowing anchor pylons, stood the Buddies.
Rows of armored operatives formed staggered lines behind portable hardlight shield emitters emanating from suitcase-sized devices. Their armor was sleek and angular, hex-patterned plates over flexible bodysuits that sparkled faintly with kinetic-dampening fields.
Above them floated:
Drone swarms—sphere and disc drones, humming faintly as they mapped threat paths.
Gunships—sleek, angular, with under-wing cannons charging.
Support craft projecting defensive grids and scanning anomalies.
Jimmy stood at the front, wearing an exosuit of his own—more compact than the others, but humming harder. Its chestplate bore the Buddies emblem, and its gauntlets carried arc conduits capable of channeling enough energy to vaporize a tank.
He took a breath and muttered to himself.
"Okay, Jimmy, you've done this before. Not this exactly, but… something kind of like this. Maybe. Not really. Great. Love the job."
A tactical officer beside him pointed at a holographic map hovering over his wristband.
"Sir, their numbers are higher than projected. Thermal signatures show heavy mutation variance. Some of them are giving off more heat than our gunship engines."
Jimmy eyed the Wolf King.
"Him, I'm guessing."
"Yes sir."
"Good guess," Jimmy muttered.
He raised his gauntlet. It flared to life, projecting a high-contrast tactical display across his visor.
"ALL UNITS—FRONTLINE FORMATION DELTA! HEAVY SHIELDS UP, DRONES IN FIRST SWEEP. DO NOT LET THEM HIT THE ANCHORS!"
The portable shield nodes along the ridge flared, snapping up curved walls of shimmering bluish energy. Buddy operatives braced behind them, rifles locking into hardpoints built into the shield bases.
Down below, the Wolf King blinked slowly.
"They think walls will save them."
He raised one claw.
And pointed.
"BREAK THEM."
The army moved.
The First CollisionWhen the Wolf King's army charged, the world tilted.
Hundreds of wolf hybrids thundered forward, claws digging into stone and fractured earth. Their black-fire auras flared, scorching the ground as they sprinted.
The Buddies answered.
"DRONE STRIKE—GO!"
A swarm of drones soared from their holding patterns—dozens of small spheres snapping into attack mode. Panels split open, unveiling plasma projectors and rail-needler arrays.
Electric arcs connected drone to drone for a brief moment as targeting networks aligned.
Then they fired.
Bolts of concentrated kinetic and plasma energy crashed down like meteor showers. Some exploded on impact, hurling wolf hybrids back in clusters. Others cut narrow lanes through the charging tide. A few drones dove directly into the pack and self-detonated in white-hot bursts.
The charge staggered but didn't stop.
The Wolf King's army slammed into the rising slope below the Buddies' position and leapt, claws raking at the hardlight barriers.
The ridge shook.
Impact warnings flashed red on shield control panels.
"SHIELDS AT SIXTY PERCENT!" a tech shouted.
Jimmy grit his teeth.
"Divert more power from the auxiliary pylons—NOW!"
Cables hummed. The shields brightened just enough to hold.
For now.
Gunfire and Black FireBuddy troopers opened up with precision.
Their rifles were sleek, coil-barrel railguns firing molten slugs at hypersonic speeds. Each trigger pull was accompanied by a sharp, tooth-rattling crack. Slugs tore into wolf hybrids, punching holes or shredding limbs.
Some went down. Rolled. Didn't get back up.
Others barely flinched.
A hybrid with half its chest missing snarled, black fire boiling out to fill the wound as mutated tissue re-knit itself.
Jimmy saw it and cursed.
"Adaptive regeneration. Because this day wasn't bad enough…"
He switched his left gauntlet to heavy mode, bracing his stance.
"FIRING GAUNTLET."
He punched the air.
A compressed arc-blast roared from his gauntlet, slamming into a cluster of hybrids and launching them backward. The blast crater smoked, stone fused into glass.
The Wolf King watched the strike, mildly impressed.
He lifted his own hand, claw tracing a lazy line through the air.
Reality bent.
A wave of black fire cut across the ground—the air burning in a curved slash. It crashed into one of the Buddies' shield emitters, slicing the device in half.
The shield collapsed.
The line buckled as hybrids poured into the opening like fire through a crack.
"LEFT FLANK BREACH!" someone shouted.
Jimmy spun. "UNIT SIX—PODS NOW!"
Six operatives slammed their palms onto their belts. Compact canisters deployed from their hips, unfolding into personal hardlight projectors. Hex-grid barrier domes snapped up around each of them as they stepped in front of the breach, forming a staggered cluster of portable bulwarks.
Hybrids smashed into them and were temporarily stalled—but the pressure was brutal.
Heavy Tech"BRING IN THE WALKERS!" Jimmy barked.
At his command, two heavy mechs thundered forward from the rear—bipedal combat walkers, towering even above the Wolf King's hybrids. Each carried twin arm cannons and missile pods mounted along their shoulders.
The ground boomed with every step.
"TARGET: HIGH-DENSITY CLUSTERS. FIRE!"
The mechs aimed down and unleashed torrents of energy fire. Explosions blossomed across the hybrid lines, scattering flaming bodies.
One walker fired a volley of micro-rockets. The cluster of projectiles split midair, forming a cloud of smaller guided rounds that tracked heat signatures. They dove into the densest patch of hybrids and detonated like a storm.
For the first time, the Wolf King's army faltered.
But only for a heartbeat.
The Wolf King's eyes narrowed.
He crouched.
Sprang.
And soared.
The King vs. the MachinesThe Wolf King sailed through the air, black fire streaming behind him like the tail of an infernal comet. The nearest walker turned its cannons to track him.
"LOCKING—LOCK—"
Too slow.
The Wolf King slammed into the mech's torso, claws driving into armor that could withstand asteroids.
It did not withstand him.
His claws tore through the plating like cardboard. He ripped out a glowing energy core and crushed it in his fist.
The walker convulsed, sparks blasting from its joints, then toppled onto its side, collapsing the ridge where it fell.
Buddy operatives scrambled away from the crash.
The second walker swiveled and opened fire, hitting the Wolf King point-blank with dual beams.
The Wolf King snarled, bracing himself, fur glowing red-hot under the attack.
For a second it seemed like the beams might stop him.
Then his muscles bulged, and he pushed forward through the onslaught, step by step, until he reached the walker and rammed his burning fist straight through its cockpit.
He tore the head off and threw it like a boulder into a distant floating island.
The Wolf King landed, chest heaving—not from exhaustion, but exhilaration.
"THIS is your wall of defense?
THIS is the strength standing between me and the dragons?"
He laughed, a deep, rumbling, terrible sound.
Jimmy swallowed hard, the feed from the destroyed mechs flickering out on his HUD.
"Right. So mechs are… mild inconveniences. Noted."
Evolving WolvesThe Wolf King lifted his hand again, curling his fingers like he was gripping the air itself.
His army responded immediately.
Black fire flared around them, forming swirling vortexes at their feet. Their bodies shuddered as the mutated serum and rabies surged through them, accelerating.
Claws lengthened.
Spines thickened.
Jaws widened.
Some grew extra rows of teeth.
Others sprouted additional horns or blade-like ridges.
Their heat signatures spiked on Buddy scanners.
"THEY'RE MUTATING MID-COMBAT!" a tech shouted.
"YEAH, I CAN SEE THAT, THANKS!" Jimmy yelled back, dodging a blast of black flame that scorched a trench beside him.
The newly-mutated frontliners hit the shields with renewed ferocity. Hardlight walls flickered dangerously.
"SHIELDS AT THIRTY PERCENT!" came the cry.
"Divert from the gunships!" Jimmy barked.
"But sir—"
"DO IT!"
The aerial cannons dimmed, but the front shield wall brightened just enough to hold another wave.
For the moment.
A Brief LullThe two armies ground against one another in a brutal stalemate.
Buddies firing, repositioning, throwing down new anchor pylons to keep the ground stable, dropping barricade cubes that unfolded into instant cover.
Hybrids lunging, clawing, hurling themselves at shields, ripping apart things that shouldn't be rippable.
Smoke thickened.
The sky flickered unstable colors.
The Outer Rifts groaned.
Finally, after a massive exchange of force, both sides pulled back slightly to re-form their lines — not by agreement, but by exhaustion of that first, furious push.
Jimmy leaned on a half-shattered barrier node, breathing hard.
Sweat and dust streaked his face inside the helmet. His exosuit reported bruises, hairline fractures, strain all over.
He checked the battlefield.
Dozens of Buddies injured.
Some critically.
Too many down.
Drones destroyed.
Walkers gone.
Defensive power reserves dropping.
They weren't beaten yet.
But they weren't winning.
Not even close.
Across the field, the Wolf King planted his claws into the stone and stretched like a predator warming up.
His army, though battered, stood eager, many of them bigger and more terrifying than at the start of the battle.
If anything…
They looked stronger.
The Wolf King inhaled deeply.
There. Faint. Distant.
That scent again.
Golden dragon.
He licked his fangs slowly.
"This is only the beginning."
Jimmy straightened, rolling his shoulders, gauntlets crackling as they recharged.
"Round one," he muttered. "Fine. You want more?"
He braced himself, staring at the Wolf King across the shifting rift.
"We'll give you more."
The Howling War had begun.
But it was far from over.