The floor and walls of the room stood as silent witnesses to Meyra's fury, which saturated the air. "Listen! As the head of this room, I will forgive you both. Now, go scrub the bathroom!" she barked, her voice echoing like a thunderclap. She commanded the two young men who were kneeling before her.
"Did you hear that, Nugia? She claimed to be the room leader!" Amae whispered, his voice barely audible.
Meyra sharpened her hearing; her ears seemed equipped with sensors capable of capturing even the slightest frequency. She didn't move, but the cold aura that had briefly receded now condensed once more, pressing down on the air around Amae's head.
"Yeah, I heard it. But isn't Zilla the real leader, Amae?" Nugia replied. Instead of whispering, his voice sounded like an announcement in the midst of the silence Meyra had created.
Amae froze. He felt a strange chill crawling up his neck, an invisible anomaly that locked his neck muscles tight.
"Amae, are you shaking? Did you see a ghost?" Nugia asked with an innocent face, staring at Amae who had turned deathly pale.
The hiss escaping Meyra's lips sounded like a predator looming behind them. Her eyes, now glowing a fiery red, seemed ready to incinerate whatever courage remained in the room.
It happened so fast that both young men were soon soaking in the bath, with clear handprints marked on their cheeks. "Amae, impressive! You've got Meyra's signature on your face? Her strike is even more powerful than your Thunderbolt Punch!" Nugia exclaimed, breaking the silence of the bathroom.
"Listen, Nugia, I let her win on purpose!" Amae muttered without looking at him.
"Really?" Nugia looked at him enthusiastically.
"You want to see? I haven't even released my full power yet!" Amae replied, chin tilted high. Nugia nodded quickly. "Tomorrow, I'll crush that Silampir—"
Suddenly, Meyra's scream from outside cut him off. "I heard what you said!" In an instant, a wave of frost crept in, turning the warm bathwater cold.
"Reyna, listen. Wawa will be fine! Don't worry. For now, we need to clean up and rest," Zilla said, comforting Reyna, who nodded slowly.
"How about we all bathe together?" Meyra asked.
***
Outside the dormitory, there wasn't a glimpse of a green light cycle. The red sky, choked with clusters of black clouds, looked ominous. The sound of Varkas' footsteps echoed between the pillars and the PETERUMMAN barracks, which stood aligned like rigid torture devices.
"I'm heading there now, Colonel Lion," Varkas concluded. Behind the now-silent earpiece, a pair of eyes watched from the shadows, blending perfectly with the darkness.
***
In Captain Snake's office, within the 'Gaia Paradox' military laboratory, smiles never visited. Even a friendly sight was an anomaly here. There was only horror, cruelty, and a reality he labeled as 'science.'
Snake's footsteps were too slow to break the silence of the main corridor, which resembled the belly of a giant serpent, its glass walls displaying several imperfect monster fragments. He arrived at a room; a voice-activated access card emitted a 'beep,' and the high-tech hydraulic door slid open with a mechanical hiss.
The stench of blood and chemicals dominated the air. Snake stood before a tank labeled Subject Bim X-50. The rhythmic pulse of digital data from Bim X-50 synchronized perfectly with his own heavy heartbeat.
"My child, it is time for you to descend again, darling!" Snake smiled with satisfaction, gazing at the human body modified with magic stones and monster parts. "I cannot wait to see my greatest masterpiece in action once more!" He stroked the tank as if wanting to embrace it. "Look, Lion! You will regret agreeing to my request!" He chuckled.
Yet, behind the insatiable brutality of his experiments, Snake had long abandoned his humanity. Ultimately, every piece of evidence he planted through suffering was merely a misguided science—a labyrinth of logic leading only to emptiness. His heavy footsteps would never be able to touch the purity of Lion's office, a place always kept in a glow of fresh, fragrant scents, starkly contrasting with the metallic stench of the lab.
***
The sound of friction filled the dimly lit room as Lion's hand rotated an orange. The scent of the fruit maintained his composure, even as dozens of photos of his daughter stared back at him. Behind those frames, she seemed to demand the time her father spent at a cold, metal desk instead of playing with her.
A moment later, the door hissed sharply. The stiff, metallic footsteps of Varkas and Jean broke the silence.
"Varkas, Jean, enough with the formalities! I want the unit containing Subject 009 (Nugia) to go to The Hollow Rim tomorrow for combat training against Captain Snake's research subject!"
Jean was stunned. His footsteps halted right at the edge of the shadow cast by Lion's desk. He hadn't expected the order to come this soon. Captain Snake's name was no toy for cadets just learning how to breathe under low-oxygen pressure. It was a graveyard for those who failed to become predators.
"But Colonel... The Hollow Rim is still in the stabilization phase after the Class-B monster incident. Unit 009 isn't ready for a true open battlefield. They'll end up like the talented cadets before them," Jean interrupted, his voice slightly hoarse, trying to find logic behind his superior's cold gaze.
Lion didn't stop rotating the orange. Slowly, the rind was torn by his sharp nail, spraying a sharp citrus aroma into the air. Lion didn't flinch. He simply pushed the torn orange aside, letting its juice drip onto a previous mission report stained with dried brown spots—perhaps the blood of the cadets Jean mentioned.
"I am not asking for your assessment, Jean. I am asking for your obedience," Lion whispered calmly, but every word felt like increasing gravity. "He has been identified as the anomaly we seek. I have no more time to wait for him to crawl like a baby."
"That is why I am sending Subject 009, Jean."
"I want to know if he is the predator who will stop this cycle of failure, or just new bait for Snake's 'favorite child'."
Lion tossed the mangled orange onto the desk. The fruit rolled past the photo of his daughter, as if tainting the memory he kept there with the acidic juice clinging to it.
"Prepare their departure for Cycle 04:00. If they die there, then they were never the answer we were looking for."
Varkas remained silent amidst the tension. He found a gap, and his cyborg eye suddenly emitted a glow of satisfaction he had long suppressed. "This time, you will die, wizard!" he muttered internally, a slight smirk curving his lips.
"What about the other units, Colonel?" Varkas asked.
"Proceed as before. Let them get used to the harshness of life outside the walls and the underworld!" Lion concluded. He instantly transformed back into a loving father as he sat back and held the photo frame.
Once the hydraulic door closed, leaving only silence, Lion whispered to the empty room.
"Is that boy the key? Tiger, did you defy me just to protect that child? What did you see?" His question hung in the air. Meanwhile, at Sector 7, The Hollow Rim, Subject Bim X-50 stood drenched in blood, waiting for Unit 009 to become its prey.
"Good, darling! Show them to your father! Shh... Shh... Shh..."