We barely made it back to Haven.
I told the settlement leader what we'd found. He was a short man with a beard that reached his chest and eyes that had stopped believing in monsters years ago. He didn't believe me. He called me a liar, a fear-monger, a troublemaker.
Then the first explosion hit.
The eastern wall disappeared in a cloud of dust and fire. Screams filled the settlement. I looked toward the horizon.
Black vehicles approached. Not three this time. Six.
A full convoy.
Rainbow.
But this time there were no ordinary soldiers.
Six figures walked at the front of the column, ahead of the vehicles, ahead of the troops. Each wore different armor—some heavy, some light, some covered in plates that looked like scales. Each carried different weapons. And each moved with unnatural confidence, the gait of people who knew exactly what they were and exactly what they could do.
Mara looked at them. "Who are they?"
I stared. My stomach dropped. My blood went cold.
"I don't know."
A speaker crackled. Commander Voss's voice came through, amplified, calm as a funeral director.
"Kael Veyron."
I stepped forward. My hands were in my pockets, my gloves tight, my heart hammering. "You again."
Voss smiled from the lead vehicle, visible through the windshield. "We've been looking for you."
I looked at the soldiers beside her. At the six figures in front. "You brought friends."
"No." Voss's expression hardened. "I brought specialists."
One of them stepped forward. His body was enormous, swollen with muscle that moved wrong, too dense, too heavy. Another moved with unnerving speed, blurring as he walked. A third had strange black markings beneath his armor, veins visible through gaps in the plating, pulsing in time with a heartbeat that was too loud.
My hand tightened around my glove. The black substance began crawling beneath my skin, responding to the threat, to the presence of others like me.
Voss continued: "We've studied your fight records. We've studied your biological changes. And we've studied the woman."
Mara stepped forward. I immediately moved in front of her.
Voss smiled. "She's beginning to express."
My eyes narrowed. "What did you do to her?"
"Nothing." Voss shook her head. "You did."
I froze.
Voss looked at Mara, her eyes clinical, hungry. "Your syndrome is reproducing."
Mara's face went pale.
Voss continued. "And hers is adapting differently.
Avian markers. Enhanced ocular sensitivity.
Auditory expansion." She sounded like she was reading a grocery list. "We've never seen a successful secondary integration before."
I stared at Mara. She suddenly looked toward the sky. Her eyes widened.
Something was coming.
I heard it a second later.
Wings. Hundreds of them. Beating in unison.
Mara whispered: "They're coming."
I looked up.
A swarm of black birds emerged from beyond the clouds. Not crows. Not ravens. Something larger.
Something wrong. Their wings were too long, their bodies too heavy, their eyes reflecting light like mirrors.
Rainbow soldiers raised their weapons. The settlement erupted into panic.
I pulled my gloves tight. The black substance surged, crawling beneath my skin, demanding release. My bones started to ache. The transformation was coming, and this time I wasn't going to fight it.
Mara looked at me. "Kael."
I looked at her.
She pointed toward the sky. "They're following me."
I stared at the swarm. Then at Rainbow. Then at my own hands. The Beast inside me was changing, responding to the presence of the birds, to Mara, to the other integrations. It was excited. It was hungry .
I lowered my head. The pain in my bones intensified, a deep, grinding ache that felt like my skeleton was being unzipped and resewn.
I knew what was coming.
Another transformation.
But this time, I wouldn't run from it.
I pulled my hat over my eyes. "Stay behind me."
Mara shook her head. "No."
She looked toward the sky, toward the swarm, toward the thing inside her that was finally waking up. Her eyes were no longer human. They were black, reflective, avian .
"I'll stand beside you."
Above us, the black birds descended. Their shadows covered the settlement like a second night. Their cries were not bird cries. They were screams.
And Rainbow watched.
Not with fear.
With anticipation.
Because for the first time since the project began...
two successful integrations were standing together.
And the world was about to learn what that meant.