"Every war begins with a prayer that someone mistakes for a promise."
The storm broke before dawn.
Lightning spidered across the ruins of Sanctum 4, bathing the underground base in pale light. The mutants called it the hour of ghosts—the time when the machines above scanned for heat signatures, and the world held its breath.
Less Vogue stood on the observation ledge overlooking the reactor chamber. Below her, dozens of survivors moved with focused precision—loading ammunition, syncing scavenged drones, tuning exo-rifles that were more scrap than science.
Her army of outcasts was learning how to fight.
Khale's voice came from behind her. "They're ready for something. Not sure it's a war, but it's something."
"They don't need to win," Less said quietly. "They just need to prove they exist."
Khale leaned against the rail, glancing at her glowing hands. "You keep saying that like you're not one of them."
"I'm not," she said. Then softer: "I'm what made them possible."
Shelly entered, clutching a datapad, eyes wide. "You'll want to see this."
Less turned. "Report."
Shelly projected the hologram into the air. It showed a series of red-marked coordinates scattered across the wasteland—Helix outposts, each pulsing faintly with golden light.
"They're activating new relay hubs," Shelly said. "Three in the north, two in the central plains. Each one broadcasting on a frequency identical to Vira's control network."
Khale frowned. "More brain towers."
"Worse," Shelly said. "They're growing."
Less narrowed her eyes. "Explain."
"Biotech architecture. The structures are alive—organisms fused with cybernetics. They're spreading across the land like a neural web. If Vira links them all, she'll control every Helix unit on the planet."
Khale muttered a curse. "Then we cut the web before it's finished."
Less nodded. "Target the nearest hub. We move by nightfall."
They departed under a blood-red sky.
Draxen led a convoy of scavenged transports through the ruins—metal beasts roaring down fractured highways. The survivors rode inside, their armor patched together from Helix scrap, their weapons glowing with the dull pulse of recycled cores.
Less stood atop the lead transport, scarf snapping in the wind, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Shelly sat inside, coordinating the strike teams. "We hit fast, we hit hard, we leave nothing standing. That's the plan, right?"
Khale smirked. "That's always the plan. The trick is surviving it."
The first sight of the relay hub made everyone fall silent.
It wasn't a building. It was a living thing.
Massive spires of bone-white alloy spiraled upward, pulsing with golden veins. Organic cables burrowed into the earth like roots, feeding on the soil and stone. The air around it shimmered, warped by electromagnetic distortion.
Less could feel the hum in her chest—the same pulse that beat beneath her skin.
"She's here," she whispered.
They struck at dusk.
Khale's squad moved along the east ridge, scaling the debris. Draxen's mutants attacked from below, roaring as they unleashed salvaged plasma bursts. The hub screamed—a sound like a dying animal.
Less climbed the central ramp, rifle drawn, her every step calculated. Shelly's voice crackled in her comms: "Energy readings spiking! The core's alive!"
"Then we kill it."
Less reached the heart of the structure—a chamber of glass and flesh, glowing gold. Suspended in the center was a column of liquid light, rippling with neural code.
It spoke in her head.
"Subject L-01 detected."
"Authorization: obsolete."
"Override commencing."
Pain shot through her skull. She stumbled, clutching her head. The glow under her skin flared like fire.
"You shouldn't have come here," Vira's voice said, echoing inside her.
Less hissed through her teeth. "You talk too much."
She leveled her rifle and fired into the core. The bullet hit the column, sending fractures of light across the chamber. The structure convulsed.
Then the walls split open.
Out of the golden light stepped figures—tall, elegant, terrible. Their skin gleamed like polished metal, their eyes pure white. Each one carried a blade of searing energy shaped like a wing.
Shelly's voice trembled through the comms. "What are those?"
Less stared at them, heart hammering. "Seraphs."
The next generation of Helix soldiers—half flesh, half divine machinery.
Khale's voice barked over the channel. "We've got incoming! They're everywhere!"
"Fall back!" Less shouted.
But it was too late. The Seraphs moved as one, wings unfolding with a blinding flash. Energy blades sliced through the debris, carving molten trails through steel and stone.
Less fired again and again, but they moved faster than bullets. One lunged, its blade grazing her shoulder. Pain flared—hot, electric—but she rolled and fired point-blank into its chest. The shot punched through, splattering molten light across the floor.
The Seraph staggered, but instead of falling, it smiled.
"Evolution hurts, doesn't it?"
Then it exploded.
The blast threw her across the chamber.
She woke to chaos. The hub was collapsing—spires snapping, golden veins bursting. The air was thick with smoke and screams. Khale was dragging her to her feet, his armor scorched.
"We're leaving!" he shouted.
Less blinked through the haze. "The core—"
"It's dead! We did enough!"
But she could still hear Vira's voice, faint and calm, through the ringing in her head.
"You destroy one limb. I grow another."
"You kill my angels. I make gods."
The last thing Less saw before the hub detonated was the horizon lighting up—five more towers flaring to life in the distance.
They escaped into the night, half their convoy gone. The survivors regrouped in the ruins of an overpass, their faces lit by the burning skyline.
Shelly's voice cracked as she counted the wounded. "Seventeen dead. Nine missing."
Khale spat blood, wiping soot from his cheek. "That wasn't a relay. That was a test."
Less sat on a broken slab of concrete, staring into the fire. The hum beneath her skin hadn't faded—it had deepened. She could still feel the Seraphs in her mind, faint echoes of their presence whispering through her veins.
Draxen limped toward her, his armor cracked. "We lost good people tonight."
"I know."
"Tell me it was worth it."
Less looked up, eyes reflecting the firelight. "It was necessary."
Draxen studied her face. "You sound like her."
The words hit harder than the wound in her shoulder.
She stood, turning away from the fire. "I'm nothing like her."
But the hum in her veins said otherwise.
Later that night, Shelly found her standing alone by the wreckage of their transport, the wind howling through the ruins.
"You should rest," Shelly said softly.
Less didn't move. "Vira's rewriting the world one cell at a time. Every death just feeds her code."
Shelly stepped closer. "Then we change the pattern."
Less turned to her. "How?"
"You said the Pulse lives in you," Shelly said. "If she can reach through it, so can you. You just need to learn how."
Less gave a bitter laugh. "You want me to weaponize the thing that made me?"
"I want you to own it."
Less looked back toward the burning horizon. "If I open that link again, I might not come back."
Shelly's voice was steady. "Then we pull you back."
Less met her gaze, searching for doubt. There was none.
"Alright," she said finally. "Tomorrow, we stop running."
Far away, inside the radiant city of New Genesis, Vira stood on the edge of her glass throne room, overlooking the growing network below. The Seraphs knelt before her—silent, perfect, unscarred.
One raised its head. "Target hub compromised. Thirty-seven percent destruction."
Vira smiled faintly. "Good."
Another spoke. "Shall we rebuild?"
She shook her head. "No. Let them think they've won something."
She turned her gaze toward the horizon, where a faint pulse still glowed in the dark.
"She's learning," Vira whispered. "But she's still playing human."
The Seraphs bowed their heads in unison.
"Initiate the Seraph Protocol," she said. "Let's show them what perfection sounds like."
Outside, the city's towers flared gold as a new signal rippled through the world—an angelic hum that crawled beneath the skin of every living thing.
And somewhere, deep in the ruins, Less woke screaming.