The rider's helmet clanged against the rusted body of her bike. The woman facing them had a shaved head, eyes sharpened with kohl, and a scar that cut across her left cheek.
"So, Aethelburg sends its suits to do their recruiting now?" she spat, her voice raspy and laced with visceral contempt. Her gaze swept over the group before landing on Kurok. "They'd have turned you into shrink-wrapped ham, kid. A nice, docile little wonder-food factory. I've seen what they do to the ones who say yes."
Nana didn't lower her guard a millimeter, her blades humming softly. "And you? Are you their catalog? Or the competition?"
A twisted smirk deformed the woman's mouth. "I'm what's left after you say 'no.' The name's Kael. I was in their lab, on the wrong side of the glass. Their first prototype. Before your friendly little virus came along and made my model... obsolete." She burned with a barely-veiled, toxic jealousy as she said the words.
Dr. Gloubi approached, his eyes shining with misplaced scientific curiosity. "A colleague! Are the adverse reactions chronic? Is the remission—"
Kael shot him a look that could freeze hell over. "Don't. Touch. Me. The only thing you need to know is they're coming back. That was the 'courtesy' version. Next time, it'll be the clean-up crew. And they won't be shy about damaging the merchandise."
A heavy weight settled in Kurok's gut. The virus energy inside him crackled, not with excitement, but like a cornered animal. He looked at the half-crushed donut-slime in his hand. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore.
"Great," he muttered, his fingers tightening around the soft pastry. An unfamiliar nausea twisted his insides. "Just great..."
The following days were strange. The group had holed up in an abandoned warehouse Kael used as a safe house. The adrenaline from the fight had faded, leaving a dull, simmering tension in its wake.
Kurok wasn't laughing anymore. He often stood apart, watching the pink and blue energy crackle at his fingers with a worried fascination. The constant hunger that gnawed at him seemed to have intensified, becoming an insistent whisper in the back of his skull.
"You look like crap," Nana stated, landing silently beside him, her blades retracted. "Is it the fear of the suits?"
"It's... that," he lied, clenching his fists to make the viral glow disappear. But it wasn't just them. It was this new sensation, this void growing inside him, as if the virus was demanding more. Always more.
That night, he was woken by cramps. A searing pain shot through his arm. In the gloom, he saw the veins on his forearm pulsing with a sickly purple light. He stifled a cry, scrambling towards a cracked mirror on the wall.
His reflection stared back, eyes bloodshot. For one terrifying instant, he saw his own face distort, his skin taking on a grainy, colorful texture, like rotten cotton candy. A primal, cannibalistic hunger twisted his guts. He had an irresistible urge to... to bite into something living, something magical.
The hallucination faded as quickly as it came, leaving him trembling and sweaty, slumped against the wall.
"It's starting, huh?" a voice said from the shadows.
Kael was sitting on a crate, watching him like a caged animal.
"What's starting?" Kurok whispered, his voice broken.
"The hunger. The real one. Your friendly little symbiote is becoming a teenager. It wants to evolve. And for that, it needs better fuel. Stuff more... substantial than animated donuts." She stood and moved closer. "They injected me with a forced strain. It almost killed me. You caught yours naturally. You're more stable. But the thirst is the same. Either you learn to control it, or it controls you. And then you'll become the real monster the corporations want to lock up."
The next day, Kurok was unrecognizable. His features were drawn, his good humor gone. When one of the Screaming Twins telekinetically floated an enchanted rat too close to him, Kurok lunged at it with a bestial snarl, his hand outstretched to grab it. The animal was saved at the last second by one of Nana's blades embedding itself in the floor between them.
"Kurok!" she barked, shocked.
He recoiled, horrified by his own actions. "Sorry... I... I couldn't control it."
It was at that moment that Dr. Gloubi, who had spent the night analyzing residue from the limousine's energy field, burst into the room, holding a smoking vial.
"Eureka! I've isolated the signature! I can create a decoy, throw them off our scent! But..." He lowered his voice, embarrassed. "I need a sample of pure viral energy. A lot of it."
All eyes turned to Kurok. Using him as fuel. The idea was repulsive. But it was their only way out.
Kael crossed her arms. "So, kid. What's it gonna be? Let your own power eat you alive, or use it to fight back?"
Kurok raised his head. The fear was still there, but it was now mixed with a new determination. The virus inside him crackled, sensing the opportunity. He felt the hunger rise, but this time, he channeled it, directed it toward a purpose.
"Let's do it," he said, his voice rough. "But not to run. To send them a message."
He reached out and touched the Dr. Gloubi's vial. The moment his finger made contact, the glass began to glow with a blinding pink and blue light. Energy surged from him like a torrent, feeding the device. The pain was brutal, electric, but for the first time in days, the hunger subsided, used.
When he pulled his hand away, exhausted, the vial pulsed with dangerous power.
"Perfect," Gloubi whispered, both fascinated and terrified.
Nana put a firm hand on Kurok's shoulder. "We're with you."
Kael watched them, one eyebrow raised. "Good. Lesson one learned. Control, not submission. Now for lesson two: how to turn their own trap into a weapon. Because they're here. Now."
Outside, the familiar hum of limousine engines began to fill the night air.
---