Red Hook Terminal – Night
(Elsa Bloodstone POV)
The docks were burning again.
Not from fire — from motion. The hybrid's first roar had turned the night into chaos; cranes moaned, floodlights flickered, and fog churned like the breath of a wounded beast. Bullseye had already vanished into it, leaving Elsa alone with whatever nightmare Fisk's people had cooked up in those crates.
The creature stood in the center of the yard, its skin crawling like it couldn't decide what shape to be. Human veins pulsed red beneath black chitin, and steam hissed from the seams of its body. Its eyes were white pits — blind but somehow aware.
Elsa tightened her grip on the shotgun.
"Right," she muttered, circling left. "You, me, and the bad life choices that brought us here."
It lunged.
She dove sideways, rolled behind a container, and came up firing. The UV rounds flared across its chest, sizzling through flesh — it staggered, shrieked — then regenerated almost instantly.
"Of course," she said dryly. "Why would anything stay dead tonight?"
It charged again. Elsa vaulted onto a forklift, kicked off the railing, and fired mid-air. The recoil spun her halfway through a roll, coat whipping around her like smoke. She landed hard, sliding across the wet concrete.
The creature slammed into the forklift, crumpling it like tin foil. Sparks exploded across the dock.
Elsa ducked behind a support beam, ejecting a spent shell.
"All right then, plan B."
She slung the shotgun, drew both pistols, and sprinted straight toward it. Her boots splashed through puddles, muzzle flash lighting the fog. Every shot struck a joint, a nerve cluster, a weak spot that shouldn't have existed — but she'd learned to trust her instincts more than biology.
It roared, swiping low. She slid under the claw, came up behind it, and fired point-blank into its spine. The creature stumbled forward, knocking over a shipping crate.
"Getting warmer!" she shouted, vaulting onto its back. The Bloodgem beneath her collar burned bright red. "Or maybe that's just me."
It threw her off with a violent twist. She hit the pavement hard, the air leaving her lungs. The shotgun skidded across the concrete out of reach.
The hybrid turned toward her, drool sizzling where it hit the ground.
"All right, darling," she said through gritted teeth, drawing her last magazine. "Let's make this quick before I ruin another pair of boots."
It charged. She fired — one, two, three rounds — then rolled, snatched the shotgun, and slammed a fresh shell in.
The creature lunged through the smoke. Elsa pivoted, planted the barrel under its chin, and pulled the trigger.
The blast threw her backward. Its head snapped up with the impact, half its face gone — but it didn't fall. It howled, steaming blood splattering across the crates.
"Bloody hell," she breathed, dragging herself to her feet.
The hybrid shrieked again, claws flexing, ready for another charge.
Elsa racked the shotgun, squared her stance, and smirked.
"Come on, then. Let's dance."
The hybrid screamed and came again.
It moved like muscle wrapped in shadow — fast, erratic, unpredictable. Elsa pivoted aside, her boots cutting through a trail of glowing blood. The Bloodgem pulsed in her chest, syncing to the rhythm of the hunt.
"All right, ugly," she muttered, swinging her rifle off her shoulder. "Let's see how you handle the classics."
She fired a burst of silver-tipped rounds, impact tracers lighting the fog in streaks of orange. Each shot tore off fragments of flesh that smoked and sizzled, but the thing kept coming.
Elsa dove behind a stack of cargo containers, reloading by feel. The creature slammed into the metal wall, denting it inward. Sparks rained from the crane overhead.
"Persistent," she breathed. "Fantastic."
She ducked left, toggled her wrist controls, and heard the familiar hydraulic clack behind her shoulders. Twin launchers folded upward from her harness — sleek, compact, humming with power.
"Let's test your appetite for explosives, shall we?"
She stepped out, locked targets, and fired both rockets.
Twin streaks of blue flame roared downrange, slamming into the hybrid's torso. The explosion turned the dockside into a storm of smoke and fire.
The shockwave blew her coat back. Shrapnel hissed through the air. The container the creature had been standing on was gone — just molten steel and ash.
Elsa exhaled, lowering the launchers. "Nothing says London hospitality like high explosives."
A low hiss answered.
Her eyes narrowed. The smoke parted — and the hybrid moved again. Half its body gone, but the rest reforming like molten glass poured over bone.
"Of course you'd survive that," she muttered, swapping to her rifle again.
She fired a clean three-round burst — silver tracers punching through its jaw. The thing shrieked, stumbling back toward Warehouse 9.
Elsa advanced, steady, every motion controlled. "Not so cocky now, are you?"
Then the Bloodgem pulsed violently — warning.
Something thudded inside the warehouse. A deep, rhythmic sound — like machinery, but organic.
She froze. "That's not one heartbeat."
The doors of Warehouse 9 split open, belching steam and crimson light.
Glass pods lined the interior walls — dozens of them, humming in sync. Some cracked. Others shattered entirely. Each pod held a half-human silhouette suspended in fluid — skin pale, eyes lifeless.
Then one of the pods twitched.
"Oh no," Elsa whispered.
The first creature hit the ground wetly. Then another. Then five more.
Each one different — veins glowing like molten iron, faces warped between agony and hunger.
Elsa braced her rifle, flipping to full auto. "You lot picked the wrong woman for a midnight snack."
The hybrids screamed as one.
The first wave charged. Elsa fired short, controlled bursts, dropping two before they reached her. The third leapt — she rolled under its claws and fired point-blank into its spine.
They were faster now, adapting — some crawling along walls, others bounding across cargo cranes.
Elsa switched to her pistols, moving with that lethal grace born of muscle memory and madness. She danced between them, every shot echoing like thunder, shells hitting the concrete in rhythm.
"Honestly," she said between reloads, "I should start charging by the corpse."
She shot one through the eye; it folded instantly, its chest smoking. The next tackled her — claws raking her shoulder — but she twisted, slammed a UV grenade into its mouth, and kicked off.
The grenade went off mid-air, painting the dock in searing violet light. The creature vaporized before it hit the ground.
Elsa slid across the concrete, flipping her launcher back online. "Right, new plan: crowd control."
She launched another volley. The blast tore through the pack — limbs, smoke, and fire scattered across the pier.
And still they came.
She ejected the empty canisters, breath fogging in the cold. Her ears rang from the explosions.
Then the Bloodgem howled.
The ground shook. Hard.
From deep inside Warehouse 9, something massive began to move. Steel bent. The walls cracked outward, one by one, as a shadow filled the doorway.
Elsa took a step back. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
The shape ducked under the shattered archway — eight, maybe nine feet tall. Its skin wasn't flesh so much as alloy and bone welded together. The veins didn't glow red like the others — they glowed white, the light of burning magnesium. Its eyes were pits of molten gold, and its breath steamed through jagged metal ribs.
"Mutant," Elsa breathed. "Different strain."
It stepped forward, each motion bending the dock plates under its weight. Behind it, the remaining hybrids scurried like lesser beasts before an alpha.
Elsa reloaded slowly, eyes narrowing. "So … you're the boss fight."
The creature growled low, a sound that made the air vibrate.
"Lovely. And here I thought my night peaked at homicidal science experiments."
She loaded her final magazine — holy rounds, etched with faint silver sigils that burned in the dark.The kind meant for demons, not men.
She aimed for the head. "Let's see if you're allergic to faith."
The mutant roared, charging like a freight train.
Elsa fired. The first holy round hit its chest — flash — light seared through its armor, holy flame erupting from the wound. The thing screamed, recoiling.
"Oh, that works," she said, surprised. "Finally, some good news."
It came again. She fired into its arm — flash — it melted clean through. The hybrids around it howled, thrashing, their own skin blistering in sympathetic agony.
Elsa holstered one pistol, grinning despite herself. "Blessed bullets it is, then."
The mutant swiped; she ducked low, rolled, came up on one knee, and fired another blessed round straight into its jaw. The light exploded, tearing half its face off.
It didn't die — but it fell back, bellowing, molten blood pouring down its chest.
She rose, panting, coat scorched, hair half-loose. Her sword arm trembled. She swallowed hard, backing away slowly.
"Where's Dante when you need him…"
The monster bellowed, the sound deep enough to rattle her bones —
—and then, over the roar, came another sound.
A deep, snarling engine tearing through the storm.
Elsa blinked. "No bloody way."
The fog split open as a streak of red light burst down the pier — headlamp blazing, motor screaming in fury. A motorcycle leapt off a collapsed ramp and came sailing through the air, trailing sparks like fireworks.
On it — of course — was Dante.
Shirt open, coat flaring crimson in the wind, grin wide enough to make the apocalypse look like an inconvenience.
Behind him clung Felicia Hardy, fully suited in her glossy black catsuit, white-fur trim fluttering in the wind, a ridiculous Hello Kitty backpack bouncing against her back. Her hair whipped wild, silver under the floodlights, eyes wide and sparkling like she'd just stolen Christmas.
"JUMP!" Dante shouted over the roar.
Felicia didn't question it. She just did.
She vaulted backward, landing in a perfect crouch beside Elsa as Dante launched himself off the bike — because of course he did.
The motorcycle hit the pier spinning. Dante grabbed the handlebars mid-flip, twisted, and brought the entire machine down in a sweeping arc.
The bike screamed as the rear wheel ignited, the tire's heat turning molten. When it connected with the mutant's jaw, it didn't just hit — it sliced.
The impact carved through flesh and metal alike, the spinning tire acting like a circular saw wreathed in flame. The mutant reeled back, half its head torn away, molten ichor splattering across the containers.
Dante landed in a crouch, dragging the smoking bike like a massive blade before letting it fall upright beside him. He cracked his neck, eyes gleaming.
"Miss me?"