The forest groaned.
Steam hissed between roots, the mist curling thicker until even the moonlight was swallowed. The air was wrong too heavy, too sharp, each breath scraping their lungs like glass. Beneath their boots, the earth trembled with the beat of something unnatural.
A machine.
A cage.
The Wolf's cage.
Merlin's gun roared again, tearing the silence into shards. Bullets bit the trees into splinters, sparks showering across the damp ground. The serpent-belt of cartridges slithered into the weapon's side, endless and gleaming, shells spilling like gold coins at her feet.
The group froze, pinned by fire, trapped in fog.
Lady Gaga's jeweled cloak fluttered as she pressed herself against a half-shattered trunk, her eyes narrowed against the storm. She had fought soldiers, assassins. But this this was a war engine planted into the very soil. Their rifles were nothing against its reach. Their blades were dust against its roar.
If they stayed, they would die here. All of them.
She raised her voice, sharp as a whip.
"Everyone run!"
The word cracked the paralysis.
Zero moved first.
He did not hesitate. He did not look back. His body blurred into the mist, fast and low, not the stride of a man but the prowl of a white beast. Silent. Emotionless. An empty voice carried on legs that struck like thunder.
Aria flinched as he vanished ahead. Her heart thudded in her chest, her eyes darting desperately through the fog. Who should she follow? Twilight's blazing sword? Thomas with his vow? Zero, who never spoke but always returned?
Her breath caught, her body trembling but her legs began to move.
The rest surged after, panic breaking them apart.
Twilight darted forward with Ema clinging close behind, his blade flashing arcs of light against the mist that bent bullets toward him.
Lady Gaga pulled Daria with her, both weaving through shadow and ruin, every step a gamble against the storm.
Commander Blackwell broke into the opposite flank, cloak snapping, his eyes hunting for the one fatal weakness in the cage's steel breath.
Thomas stumbled forward, hands locked on the stretcher, Jon Smooth's fevered body dragging him down. John Snow kept beside him, his rifle trembling but never dropping, his rage burning hotter than the fear clawing his chest.
Rowan and Edwin charged together, shield and blade defiant against the storm, their movements rough but unbroken.
The forest exhaled fire again.
Steam vents screamed open, the ground shook, and Merlin's machine gun howled death into the fog. Bullets carved fiery lines that bent like fate itself, chasing the names she had chosen.
Twilight.
Jon Snow.
But in the storm, no one could run as one. The group splintered, the mist pulling them apart like waves breaking against jagged stone.
Zero and Aria
"Zero!"
Her cry tore through the mist, twice, desperate and sharp. For a moment she thought he was gone silent, cold, leaving her behind. But then he returned, bursting out of the fog like a beast unchained.
Not a boy. Not a soldier. A white animal, running low and fast, a predator of survival.
Without a word, he lifted her, cradling her as though she were a bride taken from an altar. Aria's breath caught, her face burning as she clutched his shoulders. She had never been carried like this never so fragile, never so safe.
He remembered nothing of his past, yet something in the motion was familiar. As if, long ago, he had held someone just like this. A vow buried in memory, resurfacing in instinct.
His blade gleamed in one hand, his gun steady in the other, and his legs thundered against the trembling ground. Merlin's bullets carved fire around him, but he did not look back.
Zero would not abandon her.
Not this time.
Ema and Twilight
"Keep moving, Ema!" Twilight's voice cracked as she swung her sword in radiant arcs, light against the suffocating dark. The mist bent bullets toward her like a curse, each one seeking her heart.
Ema's arms burned, her body trembling as she pushed forward, dragging the stretcher no longer, but her will itself. Her eyes blurred with tears, yet her legs did not falter.
Twilight glanced at her so small, so stubborn and for a heartbeat the fire in his chest grew brighter than the storm. He stepped ahead of her, his blade a shield, carving a path even as the gun's jaws closed tighter.
If fate wanted Twilight, then fate would have to cut him down face to face.
Lady Gaga and Daria
Lady Gaga's cloak flared like a shard of moonlight as she darted through the fog, her jeweled eyes sharp, never losing their spark. Beside her, Daria's breath tore raw from her lungs, her hands gripping her daggers tight enough to draw blood.
"Stay low!" Gaga hissed, dragging her behind shattered roots as bark exploded under the storm of bullets.
"We'll never outrun that gun!" Daria's voice cracked, but Gaga's smile was fierce, glittering even in ruin.
"Then we don't outrun it. We outlast it."
Together they moved like shadow and flame, weaving through the wreckage, every step a gamble against Merlin's merciless aim.
Commander Blackwell
Blackwell ran alone. His cloak tore against branches, his boots hammered the ground, yet his pace never broke. His voice once the anchor for the group was swallowed by the storm.
He saw the battlefield differently. Every bullet, every hiss of steam, every trap was calculation. His eyes narrowed, cold and ruthless, measuring distance, counting heartbeats, searching for the one opening no one else could see.
If he could break through just once the others might live. That was the duty he carried. A commander does not flee. A commander endures.
Thomas and John Snow
Thomas's lungs tore with every breath, his arms numb from holding the stretcher. Jon Smooth's fevered body dragged him down, but still he refused to let go.
Beside him, John Snow staggered but never stopped. His rifle trembled in his grip, his legs heavy with exhaustion, yet something deeper drove him.
Why was he still running?
Because he remembered.
The fire. The betrayal. The Wolves teaching them to fight, only to slaughter the village when trust was deepest. Merlin's shadow over the flames. Twilight screaming in the night.
John ran because if he stopped, then that night would claim him again. He ran because Thomas still clung to his vow I will come back and John could not let another promise die in the fire.
They ran side by side, one carrying a body, the other carrying the past.
Rowan and Edwin
Rowan's shield cracked under the hail of bullets, splinters stabbing his arm. Edwin's blade sang as he slashed the mist itself, trying to carve space from the suffocating storm.
"Left!" Rowan barked, shoving Edwin away just as the ground erupted with fire. The blast threw them apart, soil burning against their faces.
They rose together, coughing, bleeding, but alive. Always alive.
Rowan's shield was shattered, but Edwin's grin split the blood on his face. "Still breathing."
"Barely," Rowan muttered, raising what was left of his shield.
But they moved again two against the world, unbroken even as the cage closed in.
The Hunt Presses On
Merlin's presence was a blade in the storm, her gun roaring with purpose. The mist bent, the forest exhaled, and the cage pulled tighter around its prey.
Yet in every direction, scattered like sparks in the dark, they still ran.
Zero carrying Aria like a vow reborn.
Twilight blazing a path with Ema at his side.
Lady Gaga and Daria weaving through the storm.
Blackwell searching for the fatal opening.
Thomas and John Snow bound by promise and memory.
Rowan and Edwin refusing to fall.
The Merlin wolf' hunt pressed on.
And the storm would not let them go.
Not yet.
Not until the hunt was finished.