The gate slid open with a groan of rusted servos. The outside world greeted them with silence not peace, but the sharp, unnatural quiet that always preceded something worse.
A team of five moved through the perimeter.
Mariel walked at the center.
She wore reinforced armor molded for movement, modified to accommodate her bio-adaptive body light alloy plating on a skin-tight frame, each piece built not to restrict, but to move with her.
Behind her were Toma and two soldiers Ramirez and Del standard recon loadouts, assault rifles, perimeter drones, shoulder-mounted optics.
"Stay close, eyes wide," Toma said. "We're treating this like a drill, but Hyperion doesn't care about drills."
They moved into the outer zone a ruined industrial yard scattered with vehicle husks and blown-out concrete walls. Dried Hyperion residue stained the soil like oil slicks: cracked, twitching, inert.
"This area was flagged for minor movement two hours ago," Barnes whispered. "No breach, no contact."
"And no scavenger activity," Del added. "Which is odd."
Mariel knelt near a decayed bio-pool. Tendrils had dried up mid-growth.
"Something passed through here," she said. "Recently. The cells are still reacting to temperature shifts."
"You can feel that?"
"I can read it."
A shriek ripped the air.
"Contact! Left flank!"
Something lunged from the shadows four-legged, low to the ground, its skin a patchwork of plated flesh and canine muscle. Its mouth split open like a flower, exposing twin rows of saw-like teeth.
Del fired first the creature absorbed two hits but kept charging.
Toma shouted, "Back! Pull back!"
But Mariel moved forward.
No hesitation. No delay.
She dashed across open ground in three seconds and slammed into the beast with both palms her body acting faster than conscious thought.
The impact cracked its exoskeleton.
It screeched.
She spun and drove her elbow into its spine a loud, wet crack. It collapsed in spasms, bile pooling beneath it.
Two more emerged from the shadows. Smaller. Faster.
Toma fired precision bursts, dropping one. Barnes missed the second creature dove into him, clawing at his armor.
Before it could bite
Mariel closed the distance and grabbed it mid-lunge.
With one motion, she twisted its spine, slammed it to the ground, and crushed its chest with a downward strike.
She stood panting, blood dripping from her hands.Toma stared, wide-eyed.
"You're not even winded?!."
Mariel looked down at the corpses.
"No… but I felt everything. Their weight. Their muscle tension. The angle of each joint."
Barnes sat up, eyes wide. "You... stopped it. Mid-air."
Post-Combat Diagnostics
Back at the stronghold, Koji reviewed the bodycam footage in silence.
"Reaction time: 0.04 seconds," he muttered. "Impact force... double projected output. She moved before she saw it."
"She's syncing with stress cues," Toma added. "Her body's processing fight response faster than we can measure."
Koji looked up. "No signs of regression?"
"None," Mariel said. "I didn't lose control. I knew exactly what I was doing."
Koji hesitated. "And how did it feel?"
Mariel took a breath. Looked at her hands again.
"Like I've been holding back my whole life."