The preparation for the suicide mission to the Dead Lands felt less like a strategic military operation and more like a funeral for a very small, very stubborn person.
Elara stood on the highest peak of the Griffin Aerie—a wind-blasted spire of rock that made her knees weak just looking at it. The air was thin here, crisp and cold.
She was currently being "armored" by Alpha Roric. The Shadow Wolf had disappeared for three hours and returned with a custom-made flight suit. It was fashioned from the same flexible, tough desert gecko skin she had used for the splint, lined with thick, soft fur from a winter-coat Wolf. It was sleek, black, and incredibly warm.
"It is tight," Roric murmured, fastening the final strap across her chest with frustratingly dexterous fingers. "To prevent wind drag. And to keep your core temperature stable in the Serpent's Breath."
"It feels like I'm wearing a wetsuit made of carpet," Elara grumbled, trying to move her arms. "I look like a goth seal."
"You look protected," Roric corrected, his silver eyes lingering on her form. He stepped back, satisfied. "I have placed a small pouch of flash-powder in the belt. If you land and are immediately swarmed... throw it and run."
"Flash-powder. Got it. Ninja tools," Elara muttered.
A heavy, ground-shaking thud announced the arrival of Alpha Kaelen. The Lion Alpha had climbed the peak—a feat that must have been humiliating for a creature built for the plains—just to say goodbye.
He looked miserable. And angry. Mostly angry that he was miserable.
"You take this," Kaelen grunted, shoving a heavy object into her hands.
Elara looked down. It was a rock. A very smooth, very heavy, golden-hued rock.
"...A rock, Kaelen?"
"It is a Sun-Stone," he growled, offended. "It holds the heat of the day. If you freeze, you hold it. It is... warm."
Elara felt the stone. It was warm, radiating a steady, comforting heat like a hot water bottle. It was actually incredibly thoughtful.
"Thank you, Alpha," she said softly, tucking it into her pack. "I'll keep it close."
Kaelen stepped in, ignoring Roric and the dizzying drop, and wrapped his massive arms around her. It wasn't a hug; it was a containment field. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply, marking her with his scent so aggressively that any Feral beast within ten miles would know she belonged to the Lion.
"If he drops you," Kaelen whispered into her ear, his voice thick with emotion, "I will find a way to fly, just so I can tear his wings off."
"He won't drop me," Elara said, patting his massive bicep. "And you have a job to do. Operation Big Loud Noise. You have to make the Master look at you, not me."
"I will roar until the sky cracks," Kaelen promised, pulling away reluctantly.
The Departure
Then, it was time.
Zev, the Storm Griffin, was waiting on the ledge. He was in his beast form—a creature of terrifying beauty. His bronze feathers gleaned in the sunlight, his beak was sharp enough to shear metal, and his blue eyes were dilated with adrenaline.
He crouched low, allowing Elara to climb onto his back. There was no saddle. Just feathers, muscle, and a leather harness Roric had jury-rigged.
"Do not pull the feathers!" Zev's voice echoed in her head—a telepathic link unique to the shifted form. "Hold the harness. And wrap your legs tight. If you fall, I cannot catch you before the acid mist dissolves you."
"Great pep talk, Zev," Elara muttered, gripping the leather strap until her knuckles turned white. "Let's get this over with before I vomit from terror."
Zev turned his head, his giant, eagle-like eye fixing on Kaelen and Roric. He gave a sharp, piercing screech—a salute.
Then, he dropped.
He didn't jump. He just leaned forward and fell off the cliff.
Elara screamed. It was a purely involuntary, high-pitched sound that was immediately ripped from her throat by the wind. They plummeted toward the jagged rocks below, gravity taking hold with sickening speed.
Just as Elara squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the splat, Zev's massive wings snapped open.
WHOOSH.
The sudden lift felt like being hit by a car in reverse. Elara's stomach dropped into her boots, then shot up into her throat. They rocketed upward, catching a thermal, spinning in a tight, nauseating spiral toward the clouds.
The Serpent's Breath
They climbed for what felt like hours. The air grew colder, thinner. The familiar landscape of the Beastworld—the Lion's oasis, the Wolf's wood—shrank until they were mere smudges on a canvas of beige and green.
"We are approaching the Mist Layer," Zev's voice projected into her mind. "Hold your breath, Elara. We must punch through the lower toxins to reach the Stream."
Below them, a sea of churning, sickly green fog stretched to the horizon. The Dead Lands. Even from this height, it looked necrotic.
Zev angled his wings and dove.
They hit the outer layer of the mist. The air instantly smelled of sulfur and burning copper. Elara buried her face in Zev's neck feathers, pressing the N95 mask tight to her face, praying the ancient filter would hold. Her eyes watered. Zev's feathers hissed as the acidic moisture clung to them.
"Climbing!" Zev strained, his powerful muscles bunching beneath her. "It burns!"
He flapped harder, a desperate, vertical ascent. The green fog swirled around them, blinding and choking. Elara felt lightheaded. The lack of oxygen mixed with the chemical stench was overwhelming.
Just don't pass out. Just don't pass out.
Then, sudden, blinding clarity.
They burst through the top of the mist layer into the Serpent's Breath.
It was a world of ice and silence. The sky here wasn't blue; it was a deep, bruised indigo, almost black. The wind wasn't a breeze; it was a jet stream, a solid wall of freezing air moving at hurricane speeds.
"The Stream!" Zev cried out mentally. "I have caught it! We are riding the Serpent!"
Their speed doubled. Tripled. The ground was a blur of green below the cloud layer, but up here, they were traveling faster than any biological creature had a right to move.
Elara was freezing. Even with the gecko suit and the wolf fur, the cold was biting. Frost began to form on her eyelashes. She fumbled for Kaelen's Sun-Stone, clutching the warm rock to her chest, curling herself as small as possible into the hollow between Zev's wings.
"You are cold," Zev observed. He adjusted his wings, changing the airflow to create a pocket of stillness on his back, shielding her from the worst of the jet stream. "I will burn my Aether. Draw heat from me."
Zev's feathers suddenly began to glow with a faint, bronze light. His body temperature spiked, radiating a magical, intense heat that seeped through Elara's suit.
"That's... better," she chattered, pressing her cheek against his glowing plumage. "Thanks, you oversized toaster."
"I am a magnificent conduit of storm energy," Zev corrected haughtily, though she could feel his exhaustion. "But 'toaster' is acceptable if you survive."
The Drop into the Dead Lands
"We are over the target," Zev announced after an hour of silent, freezing flight. "The Lost City. I see the spires."
Elara peeked over his wing. Through a gap in the acid clouds, she saw it.
It wasn't a collection of huts. It wasn't a stone fortress.
It was a grid. Grey, sharp, and geometric.
"I must dive," Zev warned. "The drop will be hard. The acid is thickest near the ground. I cannot land; I must drop you and ascend immediately, or my wings will corrode."
"Drop me?" Elara panicked. "Drop me where?"
"There is a flat stone. High up. A... roof. I will get you close. Be ready."
Zev tucked his wings and plummeted from the heavens like a meteor.
The descent was pure violence. The air pressure changed so fast Elara's ears popped painfully. They plunged back into the green fog. The smell of sulfur returned, stronger than before. Zev was coughing, his mental voice strained.
"The air... it tastes of death!"
"Almost there, Zev! almost there!"
Structures loomed out of the mist. Massive, skeletal towers of rusted steel and concrete.
Skyscrapers.
Elara's heart hammered. These weren't ancient temples. These were office buildings.
"There!" Zev shouted. He leveled out, skimming dangerously close to the roof of a crumbling twenty-story building. He slowed, his wings beating frantically against the heavy, poisonous air.
"JUMP! NOW!"
Elara didn't hesitate. She unclipped the harness and rolled off the side of the Griffin.
She hit the gravel roof hard, tucking into a shoulder roll that Roric had made her practice until she was bruised black and blue. She skidded across the wet, gritty surface, coming to a stop against a rusted ventilation unit.
She looked up. Zev was already ascending, struggling for altitude, his feathers smoking slightly from the acid mist.
"Go!" she screamed, though he couldn't hear her. "Get back to the clean air!"
She watched until the bronze flash of his wings disappeared into the gloom. She was alone. In a dead city. With an N95 mask and a warm rock.
The City of Rust
Elara stood up, checking her seals. The air here was breathable—barely—but thick with a heavy, metallic taste. The mist swirled around the rooftops, obscuring the street level.
She looked around.
It was undeniably a modern city, or what was left of one. The roof she was on was covered in tar and gravel. There were rusted HVAC units. A satellite dish, bent and broken, hung off the edge.
"Okay," Elara whispered, the sound of her own voice terrified her. "This isn't a fantasy world. This is... Earth? Or a colony?"
She moved to the edge of the roof and looked down. The streets were canyons of shadow. But she could see movement. Faint, flickering lights. And the rhythmic, mechanical marching of armored beasts.
The Feral Army.
They were patrolling the streets below.
Elara checked her location. Zev had dropped her near the tallest structure in the city—a massive, central spire that pierced the gloom. That had to be the Headquarters. The "Master's" lair.
She found a roof access door. It was rusted shut.
"Physics," she muttered. She took Kaelen's heavy Sun-Stone and smashed it against the rusted handle. Once. Twice.
CRUNCH.
The handle broke. Elara shoved the door open and slipped inside.
The Descent
The stairwell was dark, smelling of mold and old concrete. Elara clicked on a small flashlight she had scavenged from her medical kit (a penlight, barely strong enough to light her feet).
She descended twenty flights of stairs.
The building wasn't empty. It was stripped. Wires were ripped from the walls. Furniture was overturned. But there were signs of new activity.
Fresh footprints in the dust. Drag marks. And the smell of the Feral beasts.
She reached the lobby. It was a cavernous space with shattered glass walls looking out onto the misty street. In the center of the lobby, something had been constructed.
A statue? No. A totem.
It was made of circuit boards, skulls, and tangled fiber-optic cables. It was worshipful and grotesque.
Elara crept behind the reception desk, her heart pounding. She needed to find the labs. If there was a "Master" melting polymers, he needed a heat source and power. That meant the basement.
She found the elevator bank. Obviously dead. She pried open the doors of the service elevator and looked down the shaft.
A faint, blue glow emanated from the bottom. And a low, rhythmic thrumming sound.
Generators.
"Bingo," she whispered.
She grabbed the greasy elevator cable. It was slick and cold. "Don't look down, Elara. Just... don't look down."
She slid down the cable, her gloves protecting her hands, sliding past floor after floor of sub-basement levels.
B1... B2... B3...
At B4, the air changed. It became cooler. Cleaner. Filtered.
She stopped at the B4 doors. They were slightly ajar. She swung her body and hopped onto the landing.
The Laboratory
Elara slipped through the doors and found herself in a different world.
The rust and decay were gone. This hallway had been cleaned. The emergency lights were functional, casting a sterile, amber glow.
She walked past rooms with glass observation windows. Inside, she saw horrors.
Feral beasts strapped to tables. Tubes running into their veins. Machines—ancient, bulky, but functional—pumping glowing green fluids into them.
And in one room, she saw the armor.
A 3D printer. A massive, industrial one. It was humming, laying down layer after layer of the grey polymer, fusing it with lizard scales.
"He's not just finding the armor," Elara realized, horror-struck. "He's manufacturing it. He's upgrading them."
She reached the end of the hall. A set of double doors labeled COMMAND CENTER.
She pushed them open.
The Reveal
The room was filled with screens. Most were broken, but three large monitors were active, displaying scrolling code—DNA sequences, logistical maps of the Beastworld, and... live feeds of the Lion Oasis.
"He's watching us," Elara breathed. "He's been watching us the whole time."
"Indeed."
The voice was synthetic. Cold. Distorted.
Elara spun around, her hand flying to the flash-powder pouch.
Sitting in a swivel chair, facing away from her, was a figure. He slowly turned around.
He wasn't a beastman. He wasn't a human.
He was a Cyborg.
Or what was left of one. Half of his face was rotted organic tissue, pale and dead. The other half was chrome and sensor arrays. His body was a patchwork of ancient military exoskeletal parts and crude, scavenged beast-leather.
One of his eyes was a red, glowing optic lens. The other was human, blue and terrified, darting wildly as if trapped in its own skull.
"You possess a respirator," the creature rasped, the sound coming from a speaker embedded in his throat. "Unexpected. The natives usually suffocate before they reach the lobby."
Elara stared at him. She recognized the tattered scraps of a uniform under his armor.
It wasn't military. It was a lab coat.
And on the pocket, barely legible, was the same symbol she had seen on the armor. The Double Helix. And a name tag.
DR. A. VANCE.
Elara's blood turned to ice. She stopped breathing. Her vision swam.
"Vance?" she whispered. "That's... that's my name."
The cyborg tilted his head. The red eye zoomed in. The human eye widened.
"Elara?" the creature asked, his voice suddenly shifting, sounding less robotic and more... broken. "Elara... Granddaughter?"
CLIFFHANGER.