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Chapter 38
The night was chaos.
The Dome was half-collapsed, its steel bones jutting into the sky like broken ribs. Shadows poured through the breaches in the wall — dozens of monsters, twisted things stitched from hunger and spite. Their claws scraped stone, their eyes glowed with feral hunger, their screeches split the night.
The gang fought in the ruins, blood, dust, and fire thick in the air.
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Frieda moved first, her bow discarded at her feet. Her arms trembled, bruised from the strain of drawing so many shots. She slammed her palm into a beast's chest, absorbed the kinetic shock of the impact into her body, then twisted and released it in a spinning strike. The energy flared from her fist, sending the monster hurtling backward into a cluster of its kin. Bones shattered, bodies collapsed in a heap.
"More incoming!" she yelled, her voice cracking. Another brute lunged, jaws wide — she ducked low, absorbed the weight of its slam, then redirected it upward. The beast flew skyward, limbs flailing before crashing down in a broken mess.
But every use left her muscles screaming, tendons threatening to snap from the strain of being conduit and weapon all at once.
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Maya knelt low, her hands plunged into the rubble where a fallen creature twitched. Her eyes glowed faint green as threads of Aether linked her to the beast's nervous system. Its limbs spasmed, convulsed, then stilled under her control. She twisted her fingers, and the monster's own claws lashed outward — tearing through another that came too close.
"They're wired too chaotically," she hissed, sweat dripping down her temple. "Every one I hijack burns me out faster." Still, she forced another to turn its head and drive its fangs into its companion's throat before releasing her grip. Her stomach knotted, bile rising — the sensation of riding inside a creature's body was unbearable, like drowning in a mind not meant for her own. But she pushed on.
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Jarad stood at the center, blood soaking his shirt, one hand pressed tight to his side. With the other, he dragged at the fabric of space itself. His Aether shimmered like black waves as he bent gravity around him.
A cluster of monsters screamed as their bodies flattened to the dirt, their spines snapping under crushing weight. Another pack surged forward, leaping — he snarled and released, flipping the gravity beneath them. They shot upward into the air like arrows, limbs flailing, before slamming back down hard enough to crater the earth.
But each manipulation drained him. His wound seeped more freely with every pulse, his face pale, his knees threatening to buckle.
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Leon was a wall. He stood just ahead of Jarad, fists dripping with blood that wasn't his. His veins bulged, muscles corded with enhanced strength as he ripped one beast off its feet and smashed it into another with a roar. A third clamped down on his arm, teeth sinking in — he ignored it, swung the creature like a weapon, and shattered its skull against the rubble.
"Keep them off him!" Leon barked, voice ragged but unyielding. His fists blurred, each strike like a cannon, each step leaving cracks in the stone. His body bore gashes and burns, but he didn't falter. If Jarad was the axis of their survival, Leon was the shield that refused to break.
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Evie darted around the edges, blade glowing faint red from the heat she stole with every strike. She slashed across a monster's hide, and the wound instantly froze as the heat left its body in a rush. Her next swing transferred that heat back into her sword — the blade igniting in a burst of molten light as she carved through the next attacker.
One beast lunged — she pressed her palm against its throat and ripped away all its warmth. It collapsed mid-leap, brittle and lifeless, shattering like frozen glass when it hit the ground. She spun, redirected that stolen heat into the air, a wave of shimmering heat haze distorting the battlefield around her.
"Jarad, hold on!" she shouted, voice raw with panic, her strikes growing wilder, fueled as much by fear as precision.
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Halie stood back, her hands sweeping arcs of light across the battlefield. Shards of radiance bent against reflective surfaces she conjured — thin, mirror-like planes hovering in the air. The beams ricocheted between them, weaving a deadly lattice that cut through swathes of monsters.
"Keep them clustered!" she called, her voice tight, her concentration absolute. She redirected a final beam through three mirrors in succession before it sliced clean through a brute's neck. The creature toppled, spraying ichor that sizzled against her glowing constructs.
But her eyes strained, vision blurring as she forced more mirrors into being, her reserves bleeding out fast. The battlefield shimmered with deadly reflections, each one costing her breath and clarity.
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Together they fought, a circle pressed tighter and tighter as the swarm raged. Each power flared in desperation — heat, light, gravity, strength, control, kinetic fury — weaving survival out of sheer will.
But the monsters didn't stop. They only kept coming.
And far above them, beyond the range of their perception—
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EXT. HILLTOP – MILES AWAY
Subject 001 crouched on the crest of a hill, a silhouette against the fractured moonlight. His body was wrong — flesh overgrown with scars, metal gleaming faint beneath torn skin, veins of Aether pulsing faintly like molten cracks.
He didn't blink. Didn't breathe audibly. Only watched.
Every movement below played out clear to his predatory eye — the kinetic strikes, the stolen heat, the mirrored light, the bending gravity. His gaze lingered longest on Jarad, the wounded axis of the group, power flaring even as blood poured from him.
001 tilted his head slowly, hunger etched in every motion. A low rasp escaped his throat — not words, but something older.
He could end it now. Rush in, split them apart, feed the hunger twisting in his chest.
But predators didn't waste energy. Not when prey was still thrashing.
So he watched.
So he waited.
And in the ruins below, the gang bled themselves dry, unaware that the true hunt hadn't even begun.