The lift climbed fast, metal ropes screaming from the sudden pull. Up it went, groaning through every foot like something dragged awake too soon.
Shadows stretch and twist when the dim yellow glow stutters over the metal floor. Slouched in the back, Silas grips his empty gun, each breath coming too fast. The chill wall holds up Vance across from the informant, his eyelids dropping as weariness pulls like chains.
A shape once whole now hung on rage, stitched through with alien tissue. From the core of his right foot bones, a dull throb beat in time with the elevator's shudder. Each tremor brought back those stolen years - fifteen ripped out so machines could lock broken pieces together. Along the left limb, jagged seams of current tightened, sharp as hot filaments tearing slow through exposed flesh.
Yet louder than the pain came the chill. Not winter's bite - this cold lived wrong, seeping from the mark burned into his neck. Each breath tightened as if something deep underground tugged through that wound. A frozen hook buried where thought begins. Silence hummed colder.
Something sharp, almost sugary, slipped past the cracked edges where the lift doors met. It crept in slow, carried on stale air.
A sudden jerk turned Axiom's broad skull to face the crack in the wall. Pacing back and forth inside the narrow car, the shadow-lynx flicked with restless energy, black coat buzzing like a live wire. Trapped spaces set it on edge. Instinct pushed hard against iron walls, while Vance kept control firm through their linked mind-line. Up the tunnels behind, something mechanical pumped poison into the air - rising fast - and the creature caught that scent of ending just steps away.
"They pumped that black fluid directly into her spine," Vance rasped, opening his eyes to look at Silas. "How long has Vanguard been feeding her?"
The Cartel spy didn't look up from the grated floor. "Two years. They thought they were building a weapon to win the Syndicate wars. They assumed the temporal mutagen was just a fuel source. They didn't realize the fluid had a memory."
Vance tightened his jaw, the sharp smell clawing at his airway. Not merely enhanced, Elena Rostova - designated Subject Zero - functioned like a living wire, her body humming in sync with the entity sealed below. That hum wasn't random; it matched the pulse of something buried deep, something they called a god.
"The perimeter drones will be active when the doors open," Silas warned, finally pushing himself into a standing position. He checked the empty thermal magazine of his pistol, swearing under his breath before tossing the useless weapon aside. "The purge protocol locks down the entire surface grid. Anything stepping out of this lift gets registered as a biological hazard to be incinerated on sight."
His fingers closed harder around the blade made of carbon steel. Worthless it seemed next to machines that fired superheated bursts. His gaze shifted toward Axiom. Down came the creature's snout, people forgotten, those bright eyes fixed on the crack running through the thick metal doors.
Flying forward without warning, the bump sent Vance crashing into the metal bar beside him.
A metallic screech faded into silence. Up near the ceiling, past the entrance, a small screen pulsed with cold light - Surface Level - Hangar Bay 4 - in unblinking emerald.
Vance tightened every muscle, pain slicing into his heel like a rusted blade - still he held firm. Whatever stood guard beyond would meet Axiom head-on, driven by silence more than orders. The system stirred under his intent, cold and ready. Resistance wouldn't matter once motion began.
Out of nowhere, the thick metal sheets moved away from each other.
Silence hung where guns should have roared. Not a single alert broke the stillness above ground.
Footsteps echoed, then stopped - only stillness remained inside the large empty space.
Out here, Vance moved slow. Cold bit at his skin the moment he arrived. Lights stretched far ahead, bright enough to mimic day. This space? Built for huge ships - Vanguards, the kind that carried top-tier crews by the hundred.
It currently held a massacre.
Out in the open, the smooth concrete held still forms in shattered armor. White suits cracked wide by force too strong for regular plasma guns. Up above, cut wires spat sparks that lit the scene in sudden jagged bursts. Nothing moved but light and smoke.
A person moved faster than the automatic security system could react.
A figure loomed in the back of the hangar, tall and still, cleaning wet red streaks off the brutal serrated edge of a growling chainsaw blade. His frame swallowed the dim light, wrapped tight in dull gray armor made for stopping bullets.
The weight of the blade wavered in Vance's hand, memory tugging him toward the brittle helmet uncovered earlier among crumbling stone. Dust still clung to its edges, silent under a sky without names.
A flash of metal caught the light where it sat on his shoulder guard - newly buffed, cold and bright. The symbol looked heavy against the dark steel behind it.
A silver wolf's head.
Cracks split the surface station before dawn. Heavy machines hung above, their hulls charged against metal - clear signs this was never about quiet moves. What arrived looked like war instead.
A hush fell as the big man stopped moving, the growling blade at his side dropping to a rough hum. His gaze swung to the elevator, its doors spitting steam while sliding open. Each step he took crunched glass and twisted metal - what was left of a broken sentry bot crushed underfoot.
Out of nowhere, Silas gasped, jerking away like something unseen had struck him. Back he pressed, folding himself into the shadowed edge of the carriage seat. The Cartel agent spoke next, words trembling - "Kaelen. That's him." His voice cracked, thin and raw. Not calm anymore. "They call him the Iron Hound." A pause, then quieter: "He leads Argent vanguards. This area? He doesn't belong here."
Vance kept staring, unblinking. Built like a walking bunker, Kaelen wore armor beaten hard by time - gray fabric gouged from too many fights underground. Over one shoulder hung a bulky plasma gun, though what he held now mattered more: a chain-sword slick with fresh blood. Not the dark ooze found below. This was red. Real. Human.
A low chuckle echoed as Kaelen stepped forward, boots cracking ice on the hangar floor - his words cut through the shriek of wind from the broken doorway, loud without effort. One eyebrow lifted at the figures huddled near shattered consoles - the air bit hard, yet his tone stayed warm with mockery. So the Vanguard sweep left scraps behind, he mused aloud, eyeing them like misplaced tools forgotten under a workbench
Sixty yards stretched ahead - bare concrete scattered with dead soldiers. Vance did the math quietly. Nowhere to hide, nothing to block a shot. His rebuilt foot throbbed, slow and nauseating, like it knew running would rip itself apart. From beside him came a deep, steady growl. The shadow-lynx leaned hard into his thigh, its dark shape unmoving. Flickering faintly, the creature's deep-charged sparks sputtered out. After mending shattered bones and facing that awful purple deity, its strength had drained nearly empty, so now only a whisper of force remained.
Kaelen shifted the huge chain-sword onto his shoulder, moving forward with careful timing. From behind a burning dropship frame, another pair of Argent soldiers emerged. Their arc-rifles aimed straight at the empty elevator space. Step by step, tension filled the air.
"Drop the knife, kid," Kaelen called out, a cruel, easy grin splitting his scarred, weathered face. "And tell your little mutant pet to play dead. We're here to gut this Vanguard facility down to the bedrock, but I wouldn't mind a quick chat about whatever they were hiding down there before we blow the shafts."
The steel handle pressed harder into Vance's hand. Facing the Argent Cartel often ended one way - immediate bullets - or being dragged into their brutal waves, sent ahead through live mines. Yet taking on a full assault squad while worn down, riding a spent animal, broken and beaten, simply sealed fate faster.
Under the grime of his torn collar, pain shot from the icy mark burned into his skin. Each throb came like frostbite biting deeper, warning him - the real horror hadn't passed. Below, slow but sure, the glowing toxin climbed through the dark well of the shaft, silent at their backs.
Frozen in place, he faced the empire's venom, then there were the cartel's knives, all while something divine kept staring. With fewer than ten heartbeats left to decide, Vance stood at the edge - whatever came next
would carve what remained of his broken time.