The night was dead silent.
No alarms. No chatter. Just the hum of the HQ's underground ventilation system.
April lay on her cot, looking up at the ceiling. The faint pulse of red emergency lights cast restless shadows across the small steel room—her assigned quarters. Her body ached from the last mission; her knuckles were still bruised from training.
Finally, for the first time in days, she was actually drifting toward sleep.
Then—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"April, get up."
Her eyebrows rose high. Saya stood at the doorway, her expression sharp and tense.
April groaned, rubbing her face. "Saya… it's two in the damn morning…"
Saya stepped closer. The blue light from the hall hit her face, making the tension there more visible. "Outside the HQ—there's a small-scale engagement. Ragnarök. The front teams are already deployed."
That woke April up fast. She sat up instantly.
"Ragnarök? Now?"
Saya nodded. "Jax, Kai, and Dante are at the perimeter. Command says it's not a full assault—more like a probing strike. But…"
she hesitated, "there's talk of an elite among them. They want all active Gear users on standby."
April stood, sliding on her gear suit piece by piece—the adaptive weave sealing along her body with a faint mechanical shrrk. "And they're sending us?"
"Orders." Saya's tone was clipped but calm. "We're backup. We wait for the signal."
The two moved fast down the corridor. The HQ was eerily quiet, save for the distant thrum of machinery and the faint sound of gunfire echoing through the tunnels.
As they exited into the upper deck of the base, April felt the cold night hit her face— sharp, metallic, and filled with the scent of smoke.
They climbed a cracked staircase leading to the perimeter—a wide, open industrial zone scattered with debris and flickering floodlights. The air shimmered with dust and static energy from active Gears.
Jax stood ahead, his eyes looking at the horizon with a grim expression.
Kai stretched his neck, his stance relaxed but alert. Dante, ever silent, was wiping down the small red horn on his forehead.
April approached. "What's the situation?"
Jax didn't look back. "Quiet… too quiet. They pulled back ten minutes ago."
Kai's brow furrowed. "No movement, no drones. It's like they're waiting."
April folded her arms. "Waiting for what?"
Dante's voice cut through the cold. "Someone."
The group fell silent after that. Only the wind spoke—whistling through broken glass and twisted rebar.
Two hours passed. They stayed there— motionless, patient, watching. The city's ruins stretched endlessly before them.
Then at 04:00, the horizon shifted.
From the fog of smoke and ruin, a figure emerged.
Each step echoed across the cracked concrete—deliberate, heavy, and calm. Sparks hissed as the man dragged something metallic behind him.
He stopped under a floodlight.
Tall. Lean. Wearing a half-broken combat harness that clung to his frame like armor. His left arm shimmered faintly—not flesh, but nanotech musculature crawling beneath translucent skin. His pupils were what caught everyone's attention the most, they were a light-green slit down the middle.
A faint smile played across his face as he looked at the group.
"Yo," he said casually, voice smooth but carrying an unsettling resonance. "So this is the Pack, huh?"
Jax's cybernetic eye flickered. "Identify yourself."
The man tilted his head. "Vance."
The name alone made the air grow colder.
Kai muttered under his breath. "So he's the elite…"
Vance smirked. "Don't look so scared. I'm not here to wipe you all out. I just want… her."
His finger rose—straight at April.
April stiffened. "…Me?"
"Yeah." His smirk deepened. "The little blind wolf."
Saya's eyes narrowed. "You think we'll just hand her over?"
Jax raised his hand, stopping her. "Stand down."
April turned to him, startled. "What?"
Jax met her stitched gaze. "You said you wanted to grow stronger. You won't get that by hiding behind us."
Kai stepped back beside Dante, cracking his knuckles. "Your fight, April. Show us what that Wolf Gear can really do."
The wind howled through the empty industrial lot. The concrete beneath their feet was cracked, soaked with oil and blood from earlier skirmishes.
Floodlights flickered, casting long shadows across the debris.
Vance's eyes glimmered with anticipation. "You sure about this, Pack Leader?"
Jax's voice was calm. "If she's going to survive in this world, she needs to stand on her own."
Vance's grin widened. "Then I won't hold back."
He took a slow, deliberate step forward—the sound of metal joints tightening echoing in the air. His stance lowered, coiling like a predator ready to strike.
April exhaled, adjusting her reinforced black gloves, feeling her heartbeat thunder in her chest.
The night air vibrated.
Vance smirked. "Try not to die too fast, little wolf."
April lowered into her stance. "I was about to say the same thing."
"Since we're the ones forcing you to fight here's the info of Vancer's Gear to even the fight. He's Gear is part of the Animalistic Genre named the Cobra," Saya's voice echoed in April's left ear where a earpiece was located.
"And how do you know his abilities?," she quipped.
"Did you forget who created the Gears?"
April fell silence after hearing Saya's answer.
"He's abilities are Venom strike, Serpent Reflexes, Constrictor Hold & Lethal Fang. Venom Strikes–His punches deliver a paralyzing effect upon contact. Serpent Reflexes–He moves with unnatural speed and flexibility. Constrictor Hold–Once he grips a hold of you, escape is nearly impossible so watch out for it. And finally Lethal Fang–It's Vancer's ultimate ability, rumored to be highly deadly. That's all. Now go get him, little wolf."
Then—he moved.
The floor trembled beneath April's boots.
Metal groaned, dust falling from the pipes that snaked across the ceiling. The underground training arena reeked of rust, sweat, and ozone — a place built for testing monsters, not training humans.
And Vance moved like one.
April barely had time to breathe. His strikes were relentless—fast, deliberate, no wasted motion. Each punch cut the air like a piston; every kick came with bone-snapping intent.
She ducked under one blow, but the next came instantly—a low sweep that caught her ankle.
WHAM!
She hit the ground hard, rolling to the side just in time to avoid his follow-up stomp that left a spiderweb of cracks across the steel floor.
Too fast!
Vance was already on her again, slit eyes cold, expression unreadable. His movements weren't human—they were algorithmic, his muscles firing like clockwork in patterns too precise to predict.
April leapt back, barely avoiding another strike that split the concrete wall behind her.
Chunks of debris fell like hail.
"Come on, Wolf," he taunted, his voice dripping with control. "Show me something real."
April's chest heaved. Every breath burned. She wasn't fighting a person anymore—she was fighting the weapon he'd become.
Her stomach screamed in pain from the last hit, but she gritted her teeth, wiped the blood from her lip, and stepped forward.
"You want real? Fine."
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
April felt a familiar heat crawling up her arms, her veins humming.
Her fingers twitched. Her palms burned.
And then—
SHING!
Her orange colored metallic claws slid from beneath her fingernails, extending into razor-tipped blades that caught the flickering light.
April froze, her breath catching. Then a visible grin crept across her face " Now let's truly play!"
Vance's lips curled into a smirk. His gaze sharpened, predatory. "Well, well… looks like you're finally waking up."
She flexed her claws—they felt natural, terrifyingly. And she was coming to love it.
"Your turn to run."
She lunged